THE  NOVELS  AND  TALES  OF 
HENRY  JAMES 


New  York  Edition 

VOLUME  XXI 


By  Notre  Dame 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

BY 

HENRY  JAMES 

VOLUME  I 


Copyright,  1909,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
Copyright,  1902,  1903,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 


Published  under  special  arrangement  with 
Harper  &  Brothers 


l~~ 

yin    foy-cT  N^   ' 

SRLF 
URL  V* 


PREFACE 

NOTHING  is.  more  easy  than  to  state  the  subject  of  "  The 
Ambassadors,"  which  first  appeared  in  twelve  numbers  of 
The  North  American  Review  (1903)  and  was  published  as 
a  whole  the  same  year.  The  situation  involved  is  gathered 
up  betimes,  that  is  in  the  second  chapter  of  Book  Fifth,  for 
the  reader's  benefit,  into  as  few  words  as  possible  — planted 
or  "  sunk,"  stiffly  and  saliently,  in  the  centre  of  the  current, 
almost  perhaps  to  the  obstruction  of  traffic.  Never  can  a  com 
position  of  this  sort  have  sprung  straighter  from  a  dropped 
grain  of  suggestion,  and  never  can  that  grain,  developed, 
overgrown  and  smothered,  have  yet  lurked  more  in  the 
mass  as  an  independent  particle.  The  whole  case,  in  fine,  is 
in  Lambert  Strether's  irrepressible  outbreak  to  little  Bilham 
on  the  Sunday  afternoon  in  Gloriani's  garden,  the  candour 
with  which  he  yields,  for  his  young  friend's  enlightenment, 
to  the  charming  admonition  of  that  crisis.  The  idea  of  the 
tale  resides  indeed  in  the  very  fact  that  an  hour  of  such  un 
precedented  ease  should  have  been  felt  by  him  as  a  crisis,  and 
he  is  at  pains  to  express  it  for  us  as  neatly  as  we  could  de 
sire.  The  remarks  to  which  he  thus  gives  utterance  contain 
the  essence  of  "  The  Ambassadors,"  his  fingers  close,  before 
he  has  done,  round  the  stem  of  the  full-blown  flower ;  which, 
after  that  fashion,  he  continues  officiously  to  present  to  us. 
"  Live  all  you  can ;  it 's  a  mistake  not  to.  It  does  n't  so  much 
matter  what  you  do  in  particular  so  long  as  you  have  your 
life.  If  you  have  n't  had  that  what  have  you  had  ?  I  'm  too 
old  —  too  old  at  any  rate  for  what  I  see.  What  one  loses  one 
loses;  make  no  mistake  about  that.  Still,  we  have  the  illu 
sion  of  freedom  ;  therefore  don't,  like  me  to-day,  be  without 
the  memory  of  that  illusion.  I  was  either,  at  the  right  time, 
too  stupid  or  too  intelligent  to  have  it,  and  now  I  'm  a  case 
of  reaction  against  the  mistake.  Do  what  you  like  so  long 

v 


PREFACE 

as  you  don't  make  it.  For  it  was  a  mistake.  Live,  live ! " 
Such  is  the  gist  of  Strether's  appeal  to  the  impressed  youth, 
whom  he  likes  and  whom  he  desires  to  befriend ;  the  word 
"  mistake  "  occurs  several  times,  it  will  be  seen,  in  the  course 
of  his  remarks  —  which  gives  the  measure  of  the  signal 
warning  he  feels  attached  to  his  case.  He  has  accordingly 
missed  too  much,  though  perhaps  after  all  constitutionally 
qualified  for  a  better  part,  and  he  wakes  up  to  it  in  condi 
tions  that  press  the  spring  of  a  terrible  question.  Would 
there  yet  perhaps  be  time  for  reparation  ?  —  reparation,  that 
is,  for  the  injury  done  his  character ;  for  the  affront,  he  is 
quite  ready  to  say,  so  stupidly  put  upon  it  and  in  which  he 
has  even  himself  had  so  clumsy  a  hand  ?  The  answer  to 
which  is  that  he  now  at  all  events  sees ;  so  that  the  business 
of  my  tale  and  the  march  of  my  action,  not  to  say  the 
precious  moral  of  everything,  is  just  my  demonstration  of 
this  process  of  vision. 

Nothing  can  exceed  the  closeness  with  which  the  whole 
fits  again  into  its  germ.  That  had  been  given  me  bodily,  as 
usual,  by  the  spoken  word,  for  I  was  to  take  the  image  over 
exactly  as  I  happened  to  have  met  it.  A  friend  had  repeated 
to  me,  with  great  appreciation,  a  thing  or  two  said  to  him 
by  a  man  of  distinction,  much  his  senior,  and  to  which  a 
sense  akin  to  that  of  Strether's  melancholy  eloquence  might 
be  imputed  —  said  as  chance  would  have,  and  so  easily 
might,  in  Paris,  and  in  a  charming  old  garden  attached  to  a 
house  of  art,  and  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  of  summer,  many 
persons  of  great  interest  being  present.  The  observation 
there  listened  to  and  gathered  up  had  contained  part  of  the 
"  note  "  that  I  was  to  recognise  on  the  spot  as  to  my  pur 
pose —  had  contained  in  fact  the  greater  part ;  the  rest  was 
in  the  place  and  the  time  and  the  scene  they  sketched :  these 
constituents  clustered  and  combined  to  give  me  further  sup 
port,  to  give  me  what  I  may  call  the  note  absolute.  There 
it  stands,  accordingly,  full  in  the  tideway ;  driven  in,  with 
hard  taps,  like  some  strong  stake  for  the  noose  of  a  cable, 
the  swirl  of  the  current  roundabout  it.  What  amplified  the 
hint  to  more  than  the  bulk  of  hints  in  general  was  the  gift 

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PREFACE 

with  it  of  the  old  Paris  garden,  for  in  that  token  were  sealed 
up  values  infinitely  precious.  There  was  of  course  the  seal 
to  break  and  each  item  of  the  packet  to  count  over  and 
handle  and  estimate ;  but  somehow,  in  the  light  of  the  hint, 
all  the  elements  of  a  situation  of  the  sort  most  to  my  taste 
were  there.  I  could  even  remember  no  occasion  on  which, 
so  confronted,  I  had  found  it  of  a  livelier  interest  to  take 
stock,  in  this  fashion,  of  suggested  wealth.  For  I  think, 
verily,  that  there  are  degrees  of  merit  in  subjects — in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  to  treat  even  one  of  the  most  ambiguous 
with  due  decency  we  must  for  the  time,  for  the  feverish  and 
prejudiced  hour,  at  least  figure  its  merit  and  its  dignity  as 
possibly  absolute.  What  it  comes  to,  doubtless,  is  that  even 
among  the  supremely  good  —  since  with  such  alone  is  it 
one's  theory  of  one's  honour  to  be  concerned  —  there  is 
an  ideal  beauty  of  goodness  the  invoked  action  of  which  is  to 
raise  the  artistic  faith  to  its  maximum.  Then  truly,  I  hold, 
one's  theme  may  be  said  to  shine,  and  that  of  "  The  Am 
bassadors,"  I  confess,  wore  this  glow  for  me  from  beginning 
to  end.  Fortunately  thus  I  am  able  to  estimate  this  as, 
frankly,  quite  the  best,  "  all  round,"  of  all  my  productions ; 
any  failure  of  that  justification  would  have  made  such  an 
extreme  of  complacency  publicly  fatuous. 

I  recall  then  in  this  connexion  no  moment  of  subjective 
intermittence,  never  one  of  those  alarms  as  for  a  suspected 
hollow  beneath  one's  feet,  a  felt  ingratitude  in  the  scheme 
adopted,  under  which  confidence  fails  and  opportunity  seems 
but  to  mock.  If  the  motive  of  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove," 
as  I  have  noted,  was  to  worry  me  at  moments  by  a  sealing- 
up  of  its  face  —  though  without  prejudice  to  its  again,  of 
a  sudden,  fairly  grimacing  with  expression  —  so  in  this  other 
business  I  had  absolute  conviction  and  constant  clearness  to 
deal  with ;  it  had  been  a  frank  proposition,  the  whole  bunch 
of  data,  installed  on  my  premises  like  a  monotony  of  fine 
weather.  (The  order  of  composition,  in  these  things,  I  may 
mention,  was  reversed  by  the  order  of  publication ;  the 
earlier  written  of  the  two  books  having  appeared  as  the 
later.)  Even  under  the  weight  of  my  hero's  years  I  could  feel 

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PREFACE 

my  postulate  firm ;  even  under  the  strain  of  the  difference 
between  those  of  Madame  de  Vionnet  and  those  of  Chad 
Newsome,  a  difference  liable  to  be  denounced  as  shocking, 
I  could  still  feel  it  serene.  Nothing  resisted,  nothing  be 
trayed,  I  seem  to  make  out,  in  this  full  and  sound  sense  of 
the  matter ;  it  shed  from  any  side  I  could  turn  it  to  the  same 
golden  glow.  I  rejoiced  in  the  promise  of  a  hero  so  mature, 
who  would  give  me  thereby  the  more  to  bite  into  —  since 
it  *s  only  into  thickened  motive  and  accumulated  character, 
I  think,  that  the  painter  of  life  bites  more  than  a  little.  My 
poor  friend  should  have  accumulated  character,  certainly ;  or 
rather  would  be  quite  naturally  and  handsomely  possessed  of 
it,  in  the  sense  that  he  would  have,  and  would  always  have 
felt  he  had,  imagination  galore,  and  that  this  yet  would  n't 
have  wrecked  him.  It  was  immeasurable,  the  opportunity 
to  "  do "  a  man  of  imagination,  for  if  there  might  n't  be 
a  chance  to  "  bite,"  where  in  the  world  might  it  be  ?  This 
personage  of  course,  so  enriched,  would  n't  give  me,  for  his 
type,  imagination  in  predominance  or  as  his  prime  faculty,  nor 
should  I,  in  view  of  other  matters,  have  found  that  conven 
ient.  So  particular  a  luxury  —  some  occasion,  that  is,  for 
study  of  the  high  gift  in  supreme  command  of  a  case  or  of 
a  career  —  would  still  doubtless  come  on  the  day  I  should 
be  ready  to  pay  for  it ;  and  till  then  might,  as  from  far  back, 
remain  hung  up  well  in  view  and  just  out  of  reach.  The 
comparative  case  meanwhile  would  serve  —  it  was  only  on 
the  minor  scale  that  I  had  treated  myself  even  to  compar 
ative  cases.' 

I  was  to  hasten  to  add  however  that,  happy  stopgaps  as 
the  minor  scale  had  thus  yielded,  the  instance  in  hand  should 
enjoy  the  advantage  of  the  full  range  of  the  major ;  since 
most  immediately  to  the  point  was  the  question  of  that 
supplement  of  situation  logically  involved  in  our  gentle 
man's  impulse  to  deliver  himself  in  the  Paris  garden  on  the 
Sunday  afternoon  —  or  if  not  involved  by  strict  logic  then 
all  ideally  and  enchantingly  implied  in  it.  (I  say  "  ideally," 
because  I  need  scarce  mention  that  for  development,  for 
expression  of  its  maximum,  my  glimmering  story  was,  at  the 

viii 


PREFACE 

earliest  stage,  to  have  nipped  the  thread  of  connexion  with 
the  possibilities  of  the  actual  reported  speaker.  He  remains 
but  the  happiest  of  accidents ;  his  actualities,  all  too  defin 
ite,  precluded  any  range  of  possibilities ;  it  had  only  been 
his  charming  office  to  project  upon  that  wide  field  of  the 
artist's  vision  —  which  hangs  there  ever  in  place  like  the 
white  sheet  suspended  for  the  figures  of  a  child's  magic- 
lantern  —  a  more  fantastic  and  more  moveable  shadow.)  No 
privilege  of  the  teller  of  tales  and  the  handler  of  puppets  is 
more  delightful,  or  has  more  of  the  suspense  and  the  thrill 
of  a  game  of  difficulty  breathlessly  played,  than  just  this 
business  of  looking  for  the  unseen  and  the  occult,  in  a 
scheme  half-grasped,  by  the  light  or,  so  to  speak,  by  the 
clinging  scent,  of  the  gage  already  in  hand.  No  dreadful 
old  pursuit  of  the  hidden  slave  with  bloodhounds  and  the 
rag  of  association  can  ever,  for  "  excitement,"  I  judge,  have 
bettered  it  at  its  best.  For  the  dramatist  always,  by  the  very 
law  of  his  genius,  believes  not  only  in  a  possible  right  issue 
from  the  rightly-conceived  tight  place ;  he  does  much  more 
than  this  —  he  believes,  irresistibly,  in  the  necessary,  the 
precious  "  tightness  "  of  the  place  (whatever  the  issue)  on 
the  strength  of  any  respectable  hint.  It  being  thus  the  re 
spectable  hint  that  I  had  with  such  avidity  picked  up,  what 
would  be  the  story  to  which  it  would  most  inevitably  form 
the  centre  ?  It  is  part  of  the  charm  attendant  on  such  ques 
tions  that  the  "  story,"  with  the  omens  true,  as  I  say,  puts 
on  from  this  stage  the  authenticity  of  concrete  existence.  It 
then  /V,  essentially  —  it  begins  to  be,  though  it  may  more 
or  less  obscurely  lurk  ;  so  that  the  point  is  not  in  the  least 
what  to  make  of  it,  but  only,  very  delightfully  and  very 
damnably,  where  to  put  one's  hand  on  it. 

In  which  truth  resides  surely  much  of  the  interest  of  that 
admirable  mixture  for  salutary  application  which  we  know 
as  art.  Art  deals  with  what  we  see,  it  must  first  contribute 
full-handed  that  ingredient;  it  plucks  its  material,  otherwise 
expressed,  in  the  garden  of  life  —  which  material  elsewhere 
grown  is  stale  and  uneatable.  But  it  has  no  sooner  done 
this  than  it  has  to  take  account  of  a.  process — from  which 

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PREFACE 

only  when  it 's  the  basest  of  the  servants  of  man,  incurring 
ignominious  dismissal  with  no  "  character, "  does  it,  and 
whether  under  some  muddled  pretext  of  morality  or  on  any 
other,  pusillanimously  edge  away.  The  process,  that  of  the 
expression,  the  literal  squeezing-out,  of  value  is  another  af 
fair  —  with  which  the  happy  luck  of  mere  finding  has  little 
to  do.  The  joys  of  finding,  at  this  stage,  are  pretty  well 
over;  that  quest  of  the  subject  as  a  whole  by  "matching," 
as  the  ladies  say  at  the  shops,  the  big  piece  with  the  snip 
pet,  having  ended,  we  assume,  with  a  capture.  The  sub 
ject  is  found,  and  if  the  problem  is  then  transferred  to  the 
ground  of  what  to  do  with  it  the  field  opens  out  for  any 
amount  of  doing.  This  is  precisely  the  infusion  that,  as  I 
submit,  completes  the  strong  mixture.  It  is  on  the  other 
hand  the  part  of  the  business  that  can  least  be  likened  to 
the  chase  with  horn  and  hound.  It 's  all  a  sedentary  part  — 
involves  as  much  ciphering,  of  sorts,  as  would  merit  the 
highest  salary  paid  to  a  chief  accountant.  Not,  however, 
that  the  chief  accountant  has  n't  bis  gleams  of  bliss;  for  the 
felicity,  or  at  least  the  equilibrium,  of  the  artist's  state 
dwells  less,  surely,  in  the  further  delightful  complications 
he  can  smuggle  in  than  in  those  he  succeeds  in  keeping  out. 
He  sows  his  seed  at  the  risk  of  too  thick  a  crop;  where 
fore  yet  again,  like  the  gentlemen  who  audit  ledgers,  he 
must  keep  his  head  at  any  price.  In  consequence  of  all 
which,  for  the  interest  of  the  matter,  I  might  seem  here  to 
have  my  choice  of  narrating  my  "  hunt "  for  Lambert 
Strether,  of  describing  the  capture  of  the  shadow  projected 
by  my  friend's  anecdote,  or  of  reporting  on  the  occurrences 
subsequent  to  that  triumph.  But  I  had  probably  best  at 
tempt  a  little  to  glance  in  each  direction;  since  it  comes  to 
me  again  and  again,  over  this  licentious  record,  that  one's 
bag  of  adventures,  conceived  or  conceivable,  has  been  only 
half-emptied  by  the  mere  telling  of  one's  story.  It  depends 
so  on  what  one  means  by  that  equivocal  quantity.  There 
is  the  story  of  one's  hero,  and  then,  thanks  to  the  intimate 
connexion  of  things,  the  story  of  one's  story  itself.  I  blush 
to  confess  it,  but  if  one 's  a  dramatist  one 's  a  dramatist,  and 

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PREFACE 

the  latter  imbroglio  is  liable  on  occasion  to  strike  me  as 
really  the  more  objective  of  the  two. 

The  philosophy  imputed  to  him  in  that  beautiful  out 
break,  the  hour  there,  amid  such  happy  provision,  striking 
for  him,  would  have  been  then,  on  behalf  of  my  man  of 
imagination,  to  be  logically  and,  as  the  artless  craft  of 
comedy  has  it,  "  led  up  "  to ;  the  probable  course  to  such  a 
goal,  the  goal  of  so  conscious  a  predicament,  would  have  in 
short  to  be  finely  calculated.  Where  has  he  come  from  and 
why  has  he  come,  what  is  he  doing  (as  we  Anglo-Saxons, 
and  we  only,  say,  in  our  foredoomed  clutch  of  exotic  aids 
to  expression)  in  that  galere?  To  answer  these  questions 
plausibly,  to  answer  them  as  under  cross-examination  in 
the  witness-box  by  counsel  for  the  prosecution,  in  other 
words  satisfactorily  to  account  for  Strether  and  for  his 
"  peculiar  tone,"  was  to  possess  myself  of  the  entire  fabric. 
At  the  same  time  the  clue  to  its  whereabouts  would  lie  in 
a  certain  principle  of  probability :  he  would  n't  have  in 
dulged  in  his  peculiar  tone  without  a  reason ;  it  would  take 
a  felt  predicament  or  a  false  position  to  give  him  so  ironic 
an  accent.  One  had  n't  been  noting  "  tones  "  all  one's  life 
without  recognising  when  one  heard  it  the  voice  of  the 
false  position.  The  dear  man  in  the  Paris  garden  was  then 
admirably  and  unmistakeably  in  one  —  which  was  no  small 
point  gained ;  what  next  accordingly  concerned  us  was  the 
determination  of  this  identity.  One  could  only  go  by  prob 
abilities,  but  there  was  the  advantage  that  the  most  general 
of  the  probabilities  were  virtual  certainties.  Possessed  of 
our  friend's  nationality,  to  start  with,  there  was  a  general 
probability  in  his  narrower  localism ;  which,  for  that  mat 
ter,  one  had  really  but  to  keep  under  the  lens  for  an  hour 
to  see  it  give  up  its  secrets.  He  would  have  issued,  our  rue 
ful  worthy,  from  the  very  heart  of  New  England  —  at  the 
heels  of  which  matter  of  course  a  perfect  train  of  secrets 
tumbled  for  me  into  the  light.  They  had  to  be  sifted  and 
sorted,  and  I  shall  not  reproduce  the  detail  of  that  process ; 
but  unmistakeably  they  were  all  there,  and  it  was  but  a 
question,  auspiciously,  of  picking  among  them.  What  the 

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PREFACE 

"  position  "  would  infallibly  be,  and  why,  on  his  hands,  it 
had  turned  "  false  " — these  inductive  steps  could  only  be 
as  rapid  as  they  were  distinct.  I  accounted  for  everything  — 
and  "  everything  "  had  by  this  time  become  the  most  pro 
mising  quantity  —  by  the  view  that  he  had  come  to  Paris  in 
some  state  of  mind  which  was  literally  undergoing,  as  a  re 
sult  of  new  and  unexpected  assaults  and  infusions,  a  change 
almost  from  hour  to  hour.  He  had  come  with  a  view  that 
might  have  been  figured  by  a  clear  green  liquid,  say,  in  a 
neat  glass  phial ;  and  the  liquid,  once  poured  into  the  open 
cup  of  application,  once  exposed  to  the  action  of  another 
air,  had  begun  to  turn  from  green  to  red,  or  whatever,  and 
might,  for  all  he  knew,  be  on  its  way  to  purple,  to  black, 
to  yellow.  At  the  still  wilder  extremes  represented  perhaps, 
for  all  he  could  say  to  the  contrary,  by  a  variability  so  vio 
lent,  he  would  at  first,  naturally,  but  have  gazed  in  surprise 
and  alarm ;  whereby  the  situation  clearly  would  spring  from 
the  play  of  wildness  and  the  development  of  extremes.  I 
saw  in  a  moment  that,  should  this  development  proceed 
both  with  force  and  logic,  my  "  story  "  would  leave  no 
thing  to  be  desired.  There  is  always,  of  course,  for  the 
story-teller,  the  irresistible  determinant  and  the  incalculable 
advantage  of  his  interest  in  the  story  as  such ;  it  is  ever,  ob 
viously,  overwhelmingly,  the  prime  and  precious  thing  (as 
other  than  this  I  have  never  been  able  to  see  it) ;  as  to 
which  what  makes  for  it,  with  whatever  headlong  energy, 
may  be  said  to  pale  before  the  energy  with  which  it  simply 
makes  for  itself.  It  rejoices,  none  the  less,  at  its  best,  to 
seem  to  offer  itself  in  a  light,  to  seem  to  know,  and  with 
the  very  last  knowledge,  what  it 's  about  —  liable  as  it  yet 
is  at  moments  to  be  caught  by  us  with  its  tongue  in  its 
cheek  and  absolutely  no  warrant  but  its  splendid  impudence. 
Let  us  grant  then  that  the  impudence  is  always  there  — 
there,  so  to  speak,  for  grace  and  effect  and  allure ;  there, 
above  all,  because  the  Story  is  just  the  spoiled  child  of  art, 
and  because,  as  we  are  always  disappointed  when  the 
pampered  don't  "  play  up,"  we  like  it,  to  that  extent,  to 
look  all  its  character.  It  probably  does  so,  in  truth,  even 

xii 


PREFACE 

when  we  most  flatter  ourselves  that  we  negotiate  with  it  by 
treaty. 

All  of  which,  again,  is  but  to  say  that  the  steps,  for  my 
fable,  placed  themselves  with  a  prompt  and,  as  it  were,  func 
tional  assurance — an  air  quite  as  of  readiness  to  have  dis 
pensed  with  logic  had  I  been  in  fact  too  stupid  for  my  clue. 
Never,  positively,  none  the  less,  as  the  links  multiplied,  had 
I  felt  less  stupid  than  for  the  determination  of  poor  Strether's 
errand  and  for  the  apprehension  of  his  issue.  These  things 
continued  to  fall  together,  as  by  the  neat  action  of  their  own 
weight  and  form,  even  while  their  commentator  scratched 
his  head  about  them ;  he  easily  sees  now  that  they  were 
always  well  in  advance  of  him.  As  the  case  completed  it 
self  he  had  in  fact,  from  a  good  way  behind,  to  catch  up 
with  them,  breathless  and  a  little  flurried,  as  he  best  could. 
The  false  position,  for  our  belated  man  of  the  world — be 
lated  because  he  had  endeavoured  so  long  to  escape  being 
one,  and  now  at  last  had  really  to  face  his  doom  —  the  false 
position  for  him,  I  say,  was  obviously  to  have  presented 
himself  at  the  gate  of  that  boundless  menagerie  primed  with 
a  moral  scheme  of  the  most  approved  pattern  which  was 
yet  framed  to  break  down  on  any  approach  to  vivid  facts  ; 
that  is  to  any  at  all  liberal  appreciation  of  them.  There 
would  have  been  of  course  the  case  of  the  Strether  pre 
pared,  wherever  presenting  himself,  only  to  judge  and  to 
feel  meanly ;  but  be  would  have  moved  for  me,  I  confess, 
enveloped  in  no  legend  whatever.  The  actual  man's  note, 
from  the  first  of  our  seeing  it  struck,  is  the  note  of  dis 
crimination,  just  as  his  drama  is  to  become,  under  stress, 
the  drama  of  discrimination.  It  would  have  been  his  blest 
imagination,  we  have  seen,  that  had  already  helped  him  to 
discriminate;  the  element  that  was  for  so  much  of  the 
pleasure  of  my  cutting  thick,  as  I  have  intimated,  into  his 
intellectual,  into  his  moral  substance.  Yet  here  it  was,  at 
the  same  time,  just  here,  that  a  shade  for  a  moment  fell 
across  the  scene. 

There  was  the  dreadful  little  old  tradition,  one  of  the 
platitudes  of  the  human  comedy,  that  people's  moral  scheme 

xiii 


PREFACE 

does  break  down  in  Paris ;  that  nothing  is  more  frequently 
observed;  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  more  or  less  hypo 
critical  or  more  or  less  cynical  persons  annually  visit  the 
place  for  the  sake  of  the  probable  catastrophe,  and  that  I 
came  late  in  the  day  to  work  myself  up  about  it.  There 
was  in  fine  the  trivial  association,  one  of  the  vulgarest  in 
the  world;  but  which  gave  me  pause  no  longer,  I  think, 
simply  because  its  vulgarity  is  so  advertised.  The  revolution 
performed  by  Strether  under  the  influence  of  the  most  in 
teresting  of  great  cities  was  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  any 
betise  of  the  imputably  "  tempted "  state ;  he  was  to  be 
thrown  forward,  rather,  thrown  quite  with  violence,  upon 
his  lifelong  trick  of  intense  reflexion:  which  friendly  test 
indeed  was  to  bring  him  out,  through  winding  passages, 
through  alternations  of  darkness  and  light,  very  much  in 
Paris,  but  with  the  surrounding  scene  itself  a  minor  matter, 
a  mere  symbol  for  more  things  than  had  been  dreamt  of  in 
the  philosophy  of  Woollett.  Another  surrounding  scene 
would  have  done  as  well  for  our  show  could  it  have  repre 
sented  a  place  in  which  Strether's  errand  was  likely  to  lie 
and  his  crisis  to  await  him.  The  likely  place  had  the  great 
merit  of  sparing  me  preparations;  there  would  have  been 
too  many  involved — not  at  all  impossibilities,  only  rather 
worrying  and  delaying  difficulties  —  in  positing  elsewhere 
Chad  Newsome's  interesting  relation,  his  so  interesting 
complexity  of  relations.  Strether's  appointed  stage,  in  fine, 
could  be  but  Chad's  most  luckily  selected  one.  The  young 
man  had  gone  in,  as  they  say,  for  circumjacent  charm  ;  and 
where  he  would  have  found  it,  by  the  turn  of  his  mind, 
most  "  authentic,"  was  where  his  earnest  friend's  analysis 
would  most  find  him ;  as  well  as  where,  for  that  matter,  the 
former's  whole  analytic  faculty  would  be  led  such  a  won 
derful  dance. 

"The  Ambassadors"  had  been,  all  conveniently,  "ar 
ranged  for  " ;  its  first  appearance  was  from  month  to  month, 
in  the  North  American  Review  during  1903,  and  I  had  been 
open  from  far  back  to  any  pleasant  provocation  for  ingenu 
ity  that  might  reside  in  one's  actively  adopting — so  as  to 

xiv 


PREFACE 

make  it,  in  its  way,  a  small  compositional  law  —  recurrent 
breaks  and  resumptions.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  here 
regularly  to  exploit  and  enjoy  these  often  rather  rude  jolts 
— having  found,  as  I  believed,  an  admirable  way  to  it ;  yet 
every  question  of  form  and  pressure,  I  easily  remember, 
paled  in  the  light  of  the  major  propriety,  recognised  as  soon 
as  really  weighed ;  that  of  employing  but  one  centre  and 
keeping  it  all  within  my  hero's  compass.  The  thing  was  to 
be  so  much  this  worthy's  intimate  adventure  that  even  the 
projection  of  his  consciousness  upon  it  from  beginning  to 
end  without  intermission  or  deviation  would  probably  still 
leave  a  part  of  its  value  for  him,  and  a  fortiori  for  ourselves, 
unexpressed.  I  might,  however,  express  every  grain  of  it 
that  there  would  be  room  for  —  on  condition  of  contriving 
a  splendid  particular  economy.  Other  persons  in  no  small 
number  were  to  people  the  scene,  and  each  with  his  or  her 
axe  to  grind,  his  or  her  situation  to  treat,  his  or  her  coher 
ency  not  to  fail  of,  his  or  her  relation  to  my  leading  mot 
ive,  in  a  word,  to  establish  and  carry  on.  But  Strether's 
sense  of  these  things,  and  Strether's  only,  should  avail  me 
for  showing  them;  I  should  know  them  but  through  his 
more  or  less  groping  knowledge  of  them,  since  his  very 
gropings  would  figure  among  his  most  interesting  motions, 
and  a  full  observance  of  the  rich  rigour  I  speak  of  would 
give  me  more  of  the  effect  I  should  be  most  "  after  "  than 
all  other  possible  observances  together.  It  would  give  me  a 
large  unity,  and  that  in  turn  would  crown  me  with  the  grace 
to  which  the  enlightened  story-teller  will  at  any  time,  for 
his  interest,  sacrifice  if  need  be  all  other  graces  whatever. 
I  refer  of  course  to  the  grace  of  intensity,  which  there  are 
ways  of  signally  achieving  and  ways  of  signally  missing — 
as  we  see  it,  all  round  us,  helplessly  and  woefully  missed. 
Not  that  it  is  n't,  on  the  other  hand,  a  virtue  eminently  sub 
ject  to  appreciation  —  there  being  no  strict,  no  absolute 
measure  of  it ;  so  that  one  may  hear  it  acclaimed  where  it 
has  quite  escaped  one's  perception,  and  see  it  unnoticed 
where  one  has  gratefully  hailed  it.  After  all  of  which  I  am 
not  sure,  either,  that  the  immense  amusement  of  the  whole 

xv 


PREFACE 

cluster  of  difficulties  so  arrayed  may  not  operate,  for  the 
fond  fabulist,  when  judicious  not  less  than  fond,  as  his  best 
of  determinants.  That  charming  principle  is  always  there, 
at  all  events,  to  keep  interest  fresh :  it  is  a  principle,  we 
remember,  essentially  ravenous,  without  scruple  and  with 
out  mercy,  appeased  with  no  cheap  nor  easy  nourishment. 
It  enjoys  the  costly  sacrifice  and  rejoices  thereby  in  the  very 
odour  of  difficulty — even  as  ogres,  with  their  "Fee-faw- 
fum!"  rejoice  in  the  smell  of  the  blood  of  Englishmen. 

Thus  it  was,  at  all  events,  that  the  ultimate,  though  after 
all  so  speedy,  definition  of  my  gentleman's  job  —  his  com 
ing  out,  all  solemnly  appointed  and  deputed,  to  "save" 
Chad,  and  his  then  finding  the  young  man  so  disobligingly 
and,  at  first,  so  bewilderingly  not  lost  that  a  new  issue  alto 
gether,  in  the  connexion,  prodigiously  faces  them,  which 
has  to  be  dealt  with  in  a  new  light  —  promised  as  many 
calls  on  ingenuity  and  on  the  higher  branches  of  the  com 
positional  art  as  one  could  possibly  desire.  Again  and  yet 
again,  as,  from  book  to  book,  I  proceed  with  my  survey,  I 
find  no  source  of  interest  equal  to  this  verification  after  the 
fact,  as  I  may  call  it,  and  the  more  in  detail  the  better,  of 
the  scheme  of  consistency  "gone  in"  for.  As  always  — 
since  the  charm  never  fails  —  the  retracing  of  the  process 
from  point  to  point  brings  back  the  old  illusion.  The  old 
intentions  bloom  again  and  flower  —  in  spite  of  all  the  blos 
soms  they  were  to  have  dropped  by  the  way.  This  is  the 
charm,  as  I  say,  of  adventure  transposed — the  thrilling  ups 
and  downs,  the  intricate  ins  and  outs  of  the  compositional 
problem,  made  after  such  a  fashion  admirably  objective,  be 
coming  the  question  at  issue  and  keeping  the  author's  heart 
in  his  mouth.  Such  an  element,  for  instance,  as  his  inten 
tion  that  Mrs.  Newsome,  away  off  with  her  finger  on  the 
pulse  of  Massachusetts,  should  yet  be  no  less  intensely  than 
circuitously  present  through  the  whole  thing,  should  be  no 
less  felt  as  to  be  reckoned  with  than  the  most  direct  exhibi 
tion,  the  finest  portrayal  at  first  hand  could  make  her,  such 
a  sign  of  artistic  good  faith,  I  say,  once  it 's  unmistakeably 
there,  takes  on  again  an  actuality  not  too  much  impaired  by 

xvi 


PREFACE 

the  comparative  dimness  of  the  particular  success.  Cher 
ished  intention  too  inevitably  acts  and  operates,  in  the  book, 
about  fifty  times  as  little  as  I  had  fondly  dreamt  it  might ; 
but  that  scarce  spoils  for  me  the  pleasure  of  recognising  the 
fifty  ways  in  which  I  had  sought  to  provide  for  it.  The 
mere  charm  of  seeing  such  an  idea  constituent,  in  its  de 
gree  ;  the  fineness  of  the  measures  taken  —  a  real  extension, 
if  successful,  of  the  very  terms  and  possibilities  of  repre 
sentation  and  figuration  —  such  things  alone  were,  after  this 
fashion,  inspiring,  such  things  alone  were  a  gage  of  the 
probable  success  of  that  dissimulated  calculation  with  which 
the  whole  effort  was  to  square.  But  oh  the  cares  begotten, 
none  the  less,  of  that  same  "judicious"  sacrifice  to  a  par 
ticular  form  of  interest !  One's  work  should  have  composi 
tion,  because  composition  alone  is  positive  beauty ;  but  all 
the  while —  apart  from  one's  inevitable  consciousness  too  of 
the  dire  paucity  of  readers  ever  recognising  or  ever  missing 
positive  beauty  —  how,  as  to  the  cheap  and  easy,  at  every 
turn,  how,  as  to  immediacy  and  facility,  and  even  as  to  the 
commoner  vivacity,  positive  beauty  might  have  to  be 
sweated  for  and  paid  for !  Once  achieved  and  installed  it 
may  always  be  trusted  to  make  the  poor  seeker  feel  he  would 
have  blushed  to  the  roots  of  his  hair  for  failing  of  it ;  yet, 
how,  as  its  virtue  can  be  essentially  but  the  virtue  of  the 
whole,  the  wayside  traps  set  in  the  interest  of  muddlement 
and  pleading  but  the  cause  of  the  moment,  of  the  particu 
lar  bit  in  itself,  have  to  be  kicked  out  of  the  path !  All  the 
sophistications  in  life,  for  example,  might  have  appeared  to 
muster  on  behalf  of  the  menace  —  the  menace  to  a  bright 
variety — involved  in  Strether's  having  all  the  subjective 
u  say,"  as  it  were,  to  himself. 

Had  I,  meanwhile,  made  him  at  once  hero  and  historian, 
endowed  him  with  the  romantic  privilege  of  the  "  first 
person  " — the  darkest  abyss  of  romance  this,  inveterately, 
when  enjoyed  on  the  grand  scale  —  variety,  and  many  other 
queer  matters  as  well,  might  have  been  smuggled  in  by  a 
back  door.  Suffice  it,  to  be  brief,  that  the  first  person,  in  the 
\ong  piece,  is  a  form  foredoomed  to  looseness,  and  that 

xvii 


PREFACE 

looseness,  never  much  my  affair,  had  never  been  so  little  so 
as  on  this  particular  occasion.  All  of  which  reflexions 
flocked  to  the  standard  from  the  moment  —  a  very  early 
one  —  the  question  of  how  to  keep  my  form  amusing  while 
sticking  so  close  to  my  central  figure  and  constantly  taking 
its  pattern  from  him  had  to  be  faced.  He  arrives  (arrives  at 
Chester)  as  for  the  dreadful  purpose  of  giving  his  creator 
"no  end"  to  tell  about  him — before  which  rigorous  mis 
sion  the  serenest  of  creators  might  well  have  quailed.  I  was 
far  from  the  serenest ;  I  was  more  than  agitated  enough  to 
reflect  that,  grimly  deprived  of  one  alternative  or  one  sub 
stitute  for  "  telling,"  I  must  address  myself  tooth  and  nail 
to  another.  I  could  n't,  save  by  implication,  make  other  per 
sons  tell  each  other  about  him  — blest  resource,  blest  neces 
sity,  of  the  drama,  which  reaches  its  effects  of  unity,  all 
remarkably,  by  paths  absolutely  opposite  to  the  paths  of  the 
novel :  with  other  persons,  save  as  they  were  primarily  his 
persons  (not  he  primarily  but  one  of  theirs),  I  had  simply 
nothing  to  do.  I  had  relations  for  him  none  the  less,  by  the 
mercy  of  Providence,  quite  as  much  as  if  my  exhibition 
was  to  be  a  muddle  ;  if  I  could  only  by  implication  and  a 
show  of  consequence  make  other  persons  tell  each  other 
about  him,  I  could  at  least  make  him  tell  them  whatever  in 
the  world  he  must ;  and  could  so,  by  the  same  token  — 
which  was  a  further  luxury  thrown  in  —  see  straight  into 
the  deep  differences  between  what  that  could  do  for  me,  or 
at  all  events  for  him,  and  the  large  ease  of  "  autobiography." 
It  may  be  asked  why,  if  one  so  keeps  to  one's  hero,  one 
should  n't  make  a  single  mouthful  of  "  method,"  should  n't 
throw  the  reins  on  his  neck  and,  letting  them  flap  there  as 
free  as  in  "  Gil  Bias  "  or  in  "  David  Copperfield,"  equip 
him  with  the  double  privilege  of  subject  and  object  —  a 
course  that  has  at  least  the  merit  of  brushing  away  ques 
tions  at  a  sweep.  The  answer  to  which  is,  I  think,  that  one 
makes  that  surrender  only  if  one  is  prepared  not  to  make 
certain  precious  discriminations. 

The  "first  person"  then,  so  employed,  is  addressed  by 
the  author  directly  to  ourselves,  his  possible  readers,  whom 

xviii 


PREFACE 

he  has  to  reckon  with,  at  the  best,  by  our  English  tradition, 
so  loosely  and  vaguely  after  all,  so  little  respectfully,  on  so 
scant  a  presumption  of  exposure  to  criticism.  Strether,  on 
the  other  hand,  encaged  and  provided  for  as  "  The  Ambas 
sadors  "  encages  and  provides,  has  to  keep  in  view  proprie 
ties  much  stiffer  and  more  salutary  than  any  our  straight 
and  credulous  gape  are  likely  to  bring  home  to  him,  has 
exhibitional  conditions  to  meet,  in  a  word,  that  forbid  the 
terrible  fluidity  of  self-revelation.  I  may  seem  not  to  better 
the  case  for  my  discrimination  if  I  say  that,  for  my  first 
care,  I  had  thus  inevitably  to  set  him  up  a  confidant  or 
two,  to  wave  away  with  energy  the  custom  of  the  seated 
mass  of  explanation  after  the  fact,  the  inserted  block  of 
merely  referential  narrative,  which  flourishes  so,  to  the 
shame  of  the  modern  impatience,  on  the  serried  page  of 
Balzac,  but  which  seems  simply  to  appal  our  actual,  our 
general  weaker,  digestion.  "  Harking  back  to  make  up " 
took  at  any  rate  more  doing,  as  the  phrase  is,  not  only  than 
the  reader  of  to-day  demands,  but  than  he  will  tolerate  at 
any  price  any  call  upon  him  either  to  understand  or  re 
motely  to  measure ;  and  for  the  beauty  of  the  thing  when 
done  the  current  editorial  mind  in  particular  appears  wholly 
without  sense.  It  is  not,  however,  primarily  for  either  of 
these  reasons,  whatever  their  weight,  that  Strether's  friend 
Waymarsh  is  so  keenly  clutched  at,  on  the  threshold  of  the 
book,  or  that  no  less  a  pounce  is  made  on  Maria  Gostrey 
—  without  even  the  pretext,  either,  of  her  being,  in  essence, 
Strether's  friend.  She  is  the  reader's  friend  much  rather  — 
in  consequence  of  dispositions  that  make  him  so  eminently 
require  one ;  and  she  acts  in  that  capacity,  and  really  in  that 
capacity  alone,  with  exemplary  devotion,  from  beginning  to 
end  of  the  book.  She  is  an  enrolled,  a  direct,  aid  to  lucid 
ity  ;  she  is  in  fine,  to  tear  off  her  mask,  the  most  unmiti 
gated  and  abandoned  of  ficelles.  Half  the  dramatist's  art,  as 
we  well  know  —  since  if  we  don't  it 's  not  the  fault  of  the 
proofs  that  lie  scattered  about  us  —  is  in  the  use  of  ficelles ; 
by  which  I  mean  in  a  deep  dissimulation  of  his  dependence 
on  them.  Waymarsh  only  to  a  slighter  degree  belongs,  in 

xix 


PREFACE 

the  whole  business,  less  to  my  subject  than  to  my  treatment 
of  it ;  the  interesting  proof,  in  these  connexions,  being  that 
one  has  but  to  take  one's  subject  for  the  stuff  of  drama  to 
interweave  with  enthusiasm  as  many  Gostreys  as  need  be. 
The  material  of  "The  Ambassadors,"  conforming  in 
this  respect  exactly  to  that  of  "  The  Wings  of  the  Dove," 
published  just  before  it,  is  taken  absolutely  for  the  stuff  of 
drama ;  so  that,  availing  myself  of  the  opportunity  given 
me  by  this  edition  for  some  prefatory  remarks  on  the  latter 
work,  I  had  mainly  to  make  on  its  behalf  the  point  of  its 
scenic  consistency.  It  disguises  that  virtue,  in  the  oddest 
way  in  the  world,  by  just  looking,  as  we  turn  its  pages,  as 
little  scenic  as  possible;  but  it  sharply  divides  itself,  just  as 
the  composition  before  us  does,  into  the  parts  that  prepare, 
that  tend  in  fact  to  over-prepare,  for  scenes,  and  the  parts, 
or  otherwise  into  the  scenes,  that  justify  and  crown  the 
preparation.  It  may  definitely  be  said,  I  think,  that  every 
thing  in  it  that  is  not  scene  (not,  I  of  course  mean, 
complete  and  functional  scene,  treating  all  the  submitted 
matter,  as  by  logical  start,  logical  turn,  and  logical  finish) 
is  discriminated  preparation,  is  the  fusion  and  synthesis 
of  picture.  These  alternations  propose  themselves  all  re- 
cogniseably,  I  think,  from  an  early  stage,  as  the  very  form 
and  figure  of  "  The  Ambassadors  "  ;  so  that,  to  repeat,  such 
an  agent  as  Miss  Gostrey,  pre-engaged  at  a  high  salary, 
but  waits  in  the  draughty  wing  with  her  shawl  and  her 
smelling-salts.  Her  function  speaks  at  once  for  itself,  and 
by  the  time  she  has  dined  with  Strether  in  London  and  gone 
to  a  play  with  him  her  intervention  as  a  ficelle  is,  I  hold, 
expertly  justified.  Thanks  to  it  we  have  treated  scenically, 
and  scenically  alone,  the  whole  lumpish  question  of  Streth 
er' s  "  past,"  which  has  seen  us  more  happily  on  the  way 
than  anything  else  could  have  done ;  we  have  strained  to 
a  high  lucidity  and  vivacity  (or  at  least  we  hope  we  have) 
certain  indispensable  facts ;  we  have  seen  our  two  or  three 
immediate  friends  all  conveniently  and  profitably  in  "ac 
tion";  to  say  nothing  of  our  beginning  to  descry  others, 
of  a  remoter  intensity,  getting  into  motion,  even  if  a  bit 

xx 


PREFACE 

vaguely  as  yet,  for  our  further  enrichment.  Let  my  first 
point  be  here  that  the  scene  in  question,  that  in  which  the 
whole  situation  at  Woollett  and  the  complex  forces  that 
have  propelled  my  hero  to  where  this  lively  extractor  of  his 
value  and  distiller  of  his  essence  awaits  him,  is  normal  and 
entire,  is  really  an  excellent  standard  scene;  copious,  com 
prehensive,  and  accordingly  never  short,  but  with  its  office 
as  definite  as  that  of  the  hammer  on  the  gong  of  the  clock, 
the  office  of  expressing  all  that  is  in  the  hour. 

The  "ficelle  "  character  of  the  subordinate  party  is  as  art 
fully  dissimulated,  throughout,  as  may  be,  and  to  that  extent 
that,  with  the  seams  or  joints  of  Maria  Gostrey's  ostensible 
connectedness  taken  particular  care  of,  duly  smoothed 
over,  that  is,  and  anxiously  kept  from  showing  as  "  pieced 
on,"  this  figure  doubtless  achieves,  after  a  fashion,  some 
thing  of  the  dignity  of  a  prime  idea :  which  circumstance 
but  shows  us  afresh  how  many  quite  incalculable  but  none 
the  less  clear  sources  of  enjoyment  for  the  infatuated  artist, 
how  many  copious  springs  of  our  never-to-be-slighted  "  fun  " 
for  the  reader  and  critic  susceptible  of  contagion,  may  sound 
their  incidental  plash  as  soon  as  an  artistic  process  begins 
to  enjoy  free  development.  Exquisite  —  in  illustration  of 
this  —  the  mere  interest  and  amusement  of  such  at  once 
u  creative "  and  critical  questions  as  how  and  where  and 
why  to  make  Miss  Gostrey's  false  connexion  carry  itself, 
under  a  due  high  polish,  as  a  real  one.  Nowhere  is  it  more 
of  an  artful  expedient  for  mere  consistency  of  form,  to 
mention  a  case,  than  in  the  last  "  scene  "  of  the  book,  where 
its  function  is  to  give  or  to  add  nothing  whatever,  but  only 
to  express  as  vividly  as  possible  certain  things  quite  other 
than  itself  and  that  are  of  the  already  fixed  and  appointed 
measure.  Since,  however,  all  art  is  expression,  and  is  thereby 
vividness,  one  was  to  find  the  door  open  here  to  any  amount 
of  delightful  dissimulation.  These  verily  are  the  refinements 
and  ecstasies  of  method  —  amid  which,  or  certainly  under 
the  influence  of  any  exhilarated  demonstration  of  which,  one 
must  keep  one's  head  and  not  lose  one's  way.  To  cultivate 
an  adequate  intelligence  for  them  and  to  make  that  sense 

xxi 


PREFACE 

operative  is  positively  to  find  a  charm  in  any  produced  am 
biguity  of  appearance  that  is  not  by  the  same  stroke,  and 
all  helplessly,  an  ambiguity  of  sense.  To  project  imaginat 
ively,  for  my  hero,  a  relation  that  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  matter  (the  matter  of  my  subject)  but  has  everything  to 
do  with  the  manner  (the  manner  of  my  presentation  of  the 
same)  and  yet  to  treat  it,  at  close  quarters  and  for  fully 
economic  expression's  possible  sake,  as  if  it  were  important 
and  essential  —  to  do  that  sort  of  thing  and  yet  muddle 
nothing  may  easily  become,  as  one  goes,  a  signally  attach 
ing  proposition;  even  though  it  all  remains  but  part  and 
parcel,  I  hasten  to  recognise,  of  the  merely  general  and  re 
lated  question  of  expressional  curiosity  and  expressional 
decency. 

I  am  moved  to  add  after  so  much  insistence  on  the  scenic 
side  of  my  labour  that  I  have  found  the  steps  of  re-perusal 
almost  as  much  waylaid  here  by  quite  another  style  of  effort 
in  the  same  signal  interest — or  have  in  other  words  not 
failed  to  note  how,  even  so  associated  and  so  discriminated, 
the  finest  proprieties  and  charms  of  the  non-scenic  may, 
under  the  right  hand  for  them,  still  keep  their  intelligibility 
and  assert  their  office.  Infinitely  suggestive  such  an  observa 
tion  as  this  last  on  the  whole  delightful  head,  where  repre 
sentation  is  concerned,  of  possible  variety,  of  effective 
expressional  change  and  contrast.  One  would  like,  at  such 
an  hour  as  this,  for  critical  licence,  to  go  into  the  matter  of 
the  noted  inevitable  deviation  (from  too  fond  an  original 
vision)  that  the  exquisite  treachery  even  of  the  straightest 
execution  may  ever  be  trusted  to  inflict  even  on  the  most 
mature  plan  —  the  case  being  that,  though  one's  last  recon 
sidered  production  always  seems  to  bristle  with  that  partic 
ular  evidence,  "  The  Ambassadors  "  would  place  a  flood  of 
such  light  at  my  service.  I  must  attach  to  my  final  remark 
here  a  different  import ;  noting  in  the  other  connexion  I 
just  glanced  at  that  such  passages  as  that  of  my  hero's  first 
encounter  with  Chad  Newsome,  absolute  attestations  of  the 
non-scenic  form  though  they  be,  yet  lay  the  firmest  hand 
too  —  so  far  at  least  as  intention  goes  — on  representational 

xxii 


PREFACE 

effect.  To  report  at  all  closely  and  completely  of  what 
"  passes  "  on  a  given  occasion  is  inevitably  to  become  more 
or  less  scenic ;  and  yet  in  the  instance  I  allude  to,  with 
the  conveyance,  expressional  curiosity  and  expressional  de 
cency  are  sought  and  arrived  at  under  quite  another  law. 
The  true  inwardness  of  this  may  be  at  bottom  but  that  one 
of  the  suffered  treacheries  has  consisted  precisely,  for  Chad's 
whole  figure  and  presence,  of  a  direct  presentability  dimin 
ished  and  compromised  —  despoiled,  that  is,  of  its  propor 
tional  advantage  ;  so  that,  in  a  word,  the  whole  economy  of 
his  author's  relation  to  him  has  at  important  points  to  be 
redetermined.  The  book,  however,  critically  viewed,  is 
touchingly  full  of  these  disguised  and  repaired  losses,  these 
insidious  recoveries,  these  intensely  redemptive  consisten 
cies.  The  pages  in  which  Mamie  Pocock  gives  her  appointed 
and,  I  can't  but  think,  duly  felt  lift  to  the  whole  action  by 
the  so  inscrutably-applied  side-stroke  or  short-cut  of  our 
just  watching,  and  as  quite  at  an  angle  of  vision  as  yet  un 
tried,  her  single  hour  of  suspense  in  the  hotel  salon,  in  our 
partaking  of  her  concentrated  study  of  the  sense  of  matters 
bearing  on  her  own  case,  all  the  bright  warm  Paris  after 
noon,  from  the  balcony  that  overlooks  the  Tuileries  garden 
—  these  are  as  marked  an  example  of  the  representational 
virtue  that  insists  here  and  there  on  being,  for  the  charm  of 
opposition  and  renewal,  other  than  the  scenic.  It  would  n't 
take  much  to  make  me  further  argue  that  from  an  equal 
play  of  such  oppositions  the  book  gathers  an  intensity  that 
fairly  adds  to  the  dramatic  —  though  the  latter  is  supposed 
to  be  the  sum  of  all  intensities ;  or  that  has  at  any  rate 
nothing  to  fear  from  juxtaposition  with  it.  I  consciously 
fail  to  shrink  in  fact  from  that  extravagance  —  I  risk  it, 
rather,  for  the  sake  of  the  moral  involved ;  which  is  not  that 
the  particular  production  before  us  exhausts  the  interesting 
questions  it  raises,  but  that  the  Novel  remains  still,  under 
the  right  persuasion,  the  most  independent,  most  elastic, 
most  prodigious  of  literary  forms. 

HENRY  JAMES. 


BOOK  FIRST 


THE  AMBASSADORS 


STRETHER'S  first  question,  when  he  reached  the 
hotel,  was  about  his  friend;  yet  on  his  learning  that 
Waymarsh  was  apparently  not  to  arrive  till  evening 
he  was  not  wholly  disconcerted.  A  telegram  from 
him  bespeaking  a  room  "only  if  not  noisy,"  reply 
paid,  was  produced  for  the  enquirer  at  the  office,  so 
that  the  understanding  they  should  meet  at  Chester 
rather  than  at  Liverpool  remained  to  that  extent 
sound.  The  same  secret  principle,  however,  that 
had  prompted  Strether  not  absolutely  to  desire  Way- 
marsh's  presence  at  the  dock,  that  had  led  him  thus 
to  postpone  for  a  few  hours  his  enjoyment  of  it,  now 
operated  to  make  him  feel  he  could  still  wait  without 
disappointment.  They  would  dine  together  at  the 
worst,  and,  with  all  respect  to  dear  old  Waymarsh  — 
if  not  even,  for  that  matter,  to  himself — there  was 
little  fear  that  in  the  sequel  they  should  n't  see  enough 
of  each  other.  The  principle  I  have  just  mentioned  as 
operating  had  been,  with  the  most  newly  disembarked 
of  the  two  men,  wholly  instinctive  —  the  fruit  of  a 
sharp  sense  that,  delightful  as  it  would  be  to  find 
himself  looking,  after  so  much  separ^:i^n,  into  his 
comrade's  face,  his  business  would  be  a  trifle  bungled 
should  he  simply  arrange  for  this  countenance  to  pre 
sent  itself  to  the  nearing  steamer  as  the  first  "note," 
of  Europe.  Mixed  with  everything  was  the  appre- 

3 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

hension,  already,  on  Strether's  part,  that  it  would,  at 
best,  throughout,  prove  the  note  of  Europe  in  quite 
a  sufficient  degree. 

That  note  had  been  meanwhile  —  since  the  pre 
vious  afternoon,  thanks  to  this  happier  device  —  such 
a  consciousness  of  personal  freedom  as  he  had  n't 
known  for  years ;  such  a  deep  taste  of  change  and  of 
having  above  all  for  the  moment  nobody  and  nothing 
to  consider,  as  promised  already,  if  headlong  hope 
were  not  too  foolish,  to  colour  his  adventure  with  cool 
success.  There  were  people  on  the  ship  with  whom 
he  had  easily  consorted  —  so  far  as  ease  could  up  to 
now  be  imputed  to  him  —  and  who  for  the  most  part 
plunged  straight  into  the  current  that  set  from  the 
landing-stage  to  London;  there  were  others  who  had 
invited  him  to  a  tryst  at  the  inn  and  had  even  invoked 
his  aid  for  a  "look  round"  at  the  beauties  of  Liver 
pool;  but  he  had  stolen  away  from  every  one  alike, 
had  kept  no  appointment  and  renewed  no  acquaint 
ance,  had  been  indifferently  aware  of  the  number 
of  persons  who  esteemed  themselves  fortunate  in 
being, unlike  himself,  "met,"  and  had  even  independ 
ently,  unsociably,  alone,  without  encounter  or  relapse 
and  by  mere  quiet  evasion,  given  his  afternoon  and 
evening  to  the  immediate  and  the  sensible.  They 
formed  a  qualified  draught  of  Europe,  an  afternoon 
and  an  evening  on  the  banks  of  the  Mersey,  but  such 
as  it  was  he  took  his  potion  at  least  undiluted.  He 
winced  a  little,  truly,  at  the  thought  that  Waymarsh 
might  be  already  at  Chester;  he  reflected  that,  should 
he  have  to  describe  himself  there  as  having  "got  in" 
so  early,  it  would  be  difficult  to  make  the  interval 

4 


BOOK  FIRST 

look  particularly  eager;  but  he  was  like  a  man  who, 
elatedly  rinding  in  his  pocket  more  money  than  usual, 
handles  it  a  while  and  idly  and  pleasantly  chinks  it 
before  addressing  himself  to  the  business  of  spending. 
That  he  was  prepared  to  be  vague  to  Waymarsh  about 
the  hour  of  the  ship's  touching,  and  that  he  both  wanted 
extremely  to  see  him  and  enjoyed  extremely  the  dura 
tion  of  delay  —  these  things,  it  is  to  be  conceived,  were 
early  signs  in  him  that  his  relation  to  his  actual  errand 
might  prove  none  of  the  simplest.  He  was  burdened, 
poor  Strether  —  it  had  better  be  confessed  at  the 
outset  —  with  the  oddity  of  a  double  consciousness. 
There  was  detachment  in  his  zeal  and  curiosity  in  his 
indifference. 

After  the  young  woman  in  the  glass  cage  had  held 
up  to  him  across  her  counter  the  pale-pink  leaflet 
bearing  his  friend's  name,  which  she  neatly  pro 
nounced,  he  turned  away  to  find  himself,  in  the  hall, 
facing  a  lady  who  met  his  eyes  as  with  an  intention 
suddenly  determined,  and  whose  features  —  not 
freshly  young,  not  markedly  fine,  but  on  happy  terms 
with  each  other  —  came  back  to  him  as  from  a  recent 
vision.  For  a  moment  they  stood  confronted ;  then  the 
moment  placed  her:  he  had  noticed  her  the  day  be 
fore,  noticed  her  at  his  previous  inn,  where  —  again 
in  the  hall  —  she  had  been  briefly  engaged  with  some 
people  of  his  own  ship's  company.  Nothing  had  actu 
ally  passed  between  them,  and  he  would  as  little  have 
been  able  to  say  what  had  been  the  sign  of  her  face 
for  him  on  the  first  occasion  as  to  name  the  ground 
of  his  present  recognition.  Recognition  at  any  rate 
appeared  to  prevail  on  her  own  side  as  well  —  which 

5 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

would  only  have  added  to  the  mystery.  All  she  now 
began  by  saying  to  him  nevertheless  was  that,  having 
chanced  to  catch  his  enquiry,  she  was  moved  to  ask, 
by  his  leave,  if  it  were  possibly  a  question  of  Mr.  Way- 
marsh  of  Milrose  Connecticut  —  Mr.  Waymarsh  the 
American  lawyer. 

"Oh  yes,"  he  replied,  "my  very  well-known  friend. 
He 's  to  meet  me  here,  coming  up  from  Malvern,  and 
I  supposed  he  'd  already  have  arrived.  But  he  does  n't 
come  till  later,  and  I  'm  relieved  not  to  have  kept  him. 
Do  you  know  him  ? "  Strether  wound  up. 

It  was  n't  till  after  he  had  spoken  that  he  became 
aware  of  how  much  there  had  been  in  him  of  response; 
when  the  tone  of  her  own  rejoinder,  as  well  as  the  play 
of  something  more  in  her  face  —  something  more, 
that  is,  than  its  apparently  usual  restless  light  — • 
seemed  to  notify  him.  "I've  met  him  at  Milrose  — 
where  I  used  sometimes,  a  good  while  ago,  to  stay; 
I  had  friends  there  who  were  friends  of  his,  and  I  've 
been  at  his  house.  I  won't  answer  for  it  that  he 
would  know  me,"  Strether's  new  acquaintance  pur 
sued  ;  "  but  I  should  be  delighted  to  see  him.  Perhaps," 
she  added,  "I  shall  —  for  I'm  staying  over."  She 
paused  while  our  friend  took  in  these  things,  and  it 
was  as  if  a  good  deal  of  talk  had  already  passed. 
They  even  vaguely  smiled  at  it,  and  Strether  presently 
observed  that  Mr.  Waymarsh  would,  no  doubt,  be 
easily  to  be  seen.  This,  however,  appeared  to  affect 
the  lady  as  if  she  might  have  advanced  too  far.  She 
appeared  to  have  no  reserves  about  anything.  "  Oh," 
she  said,  "he  won't  care!" — and  she  immediately 
thereupon  remarked  that  she  believed  Strether  knew 

6 


BOOK  FIRST 

the  Ministers ;  the  Munsters  being  the  people  he  had 
seen  her  with  at  Liverpool. 

But  he  did  n't,  it  happened,  know  the  Munsters  well 
enough  to  give  the  case  much  of  a  lift;  so  that  they 
were  left  together  as  if  over  the  mere  laid  table  of 
conversation.  Her  qualification  of  the  mentioned  con 
nexion  had  rather  removed  than  placed  a  dish,  and 
there  seemed  nothing  else  to  serve.  Their  attitude  re 
mained,  none  the  less,  that  of  not  forsaking  the  board ; 
and  the  effect  of  this  in  turn  was  to  give  them  the 
appearance  of  having  accepted  each  other  with  an 
absence  of  preliminaries  practically  complete.  They 
moved  along  the  hall  together,  and  Strether's  com 
panion  threw  off  that  the  hotel  had  the  advantage 
of  a  garden.  He  was  aware  by  this  time  of  his  strange 
inconsequence :  he  had  shirked  the  intimacies  of  the 
steamer  and  had  muffled  the  shock  of  Waymarsh  only 
to  find  himself  forsaken,  in  this  sudden  case,  both  of 
avoidance  and  of  caution.  He  passed,  under  this 
unsought  protection  and  before  he  had  so  much  as 
gone  up  to  his  room,  into  the  garden  of  the  hotel, 
and  at  the  end  of  ten  minutes  had  agreed  to  meet 
there  again,  as  soon  as  he  should  have  made  himself 
tidy,  the  dispenser  of  such  good  assurances.  He 
wanted  to  look  at  the  town,  and  they  would  forthwith 
look  together.  It  was  almost  as  if  she  had  been  in 
possession  and  received  him  as  a  guest.  Her  acquaint 
ance  with  the  place  presented  her  in  a  manner  as  a 
hostess,  and  Strether  had  a  rueful  glance  for  the 
lady  in  the  glass  cage.  It  was  as  if  this  personage  had 
seen  herself  instantly  superseded. 

When  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  came  down,  what 

7 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

his  hostess  saw,  what  she  might  have  taken  in  with  a 
vision  kindly  adjusted,  was  the  lean,  the  slightly  loose 
figure  of  a  man  of  the  middle  height  and  something 
more  perhaps  than  the  middle  age  —  a  man  of  five- 
and-fifty,  whose  most  immediate  signs  were  a  marked 
bloodless  brownness  of  face,  a  thick  dark  moustache, 
of  characteristically  American  cut,  growing  strong 
and  falling  low,  a  head  of  hair  still  abundant  but 
irregularly  streaked  with  grey,  and  a  nose  of  bold  free 
prominence,  the  even  line,  the  high  finish,  as  it  might 
have  been  called,  of  which,  had  a  certain  effect  of 
mitigation.  A  perpetual  pair  of  glasses  astride  of 
this  fine  ridge,  and  a  line,  unusually  deep  and  drawn, 
the  prolonged  pen-stroke  of  time,  accompanying 
the  curve  of  the  moustache  from  nostril  to  chin,  did 
something  to  complete  the  facial  furniture  that  an 
attentive  observer  would  have  seen  catalogued,  on  the 
spot,  in  the  vision  of  the  other  party  to  Strether's 
appointment.  She  waited  for  him  in  the  garden,  the 
other  party,  drawing  on  a  pair  of  singularly  fresh  soft 
and  elastic  light  gloves  and  presenting  herself  with  a 
superficial  readiness  which,  as  he  approached  her  over 
the  small  smooth  lawn  and  in  the  watery  English 
sunshine,  he  might,  with  his  rougher  preparation, 
have  marked  as  the  model  for  such  an  occasion.  She 
had,  this  lady,  a  perfect  plain  propriety,  an  expensive 
subdued  suitability,  that  her  companion  was  not  free 
to  analyse,  but  that  struck  him,  so  that  his  conscious 
ness  of  it  was  instantly  acute,  as  a  quality  quite  new 
to  him.  Before  reaching  her  he  stopped  on  the  grass 
and  went  through  the  form  of  feeling  for  something, 
possibly  forgotten,  in  the  light  overcoat  he  carried 

8 


BOOK  FIRST 

on  his  arm ;  yet  the  essence  of  the  act  was  no  more  than 
the  impulse  to  gain  time.  Nothing  could  have  been 
odder  than  Strether's  sense  of  himself  as  at  that 
moment  launched  in  something  of  which  the  sense 
would  be  quite  disconnected  from  the  sense  of  his 
past  and  which  was  literally  beginning  there  and 
then.  It  had  begun  in  fact  already  upstairs  and  before 
the  dressing-glass  that  struck  him  as  blocking  fur 
ther,  so  strangely,  the  dimness  of  the  window  of  his 
dull  bedroom;  begun  with  a  sharper  survey  of  the 
elements  of  Appearance  than  he  had  for  a  long  time 
been  moved  to  make.  He  had  during  those  moments 
felt  these  elements  to  be  not  so  much  to  his  hand  as  he 
should  have  liked,  and  then  had  fallen  back  on  the 
thought  that  they  were  precisely  a  matter  as  to  which 
help  was  supposed  to  come  from  what  he  was  about 
to  do.  He  was  about  to  go  up  to  London,  so  that  hat 
and  necktie  might  wait.  What  had  come  as  straight 
to  him  as  a  ball  in  a  well-played  game  —  and  caught 
moreover  not  less  neatly  —  was  just  the  air,  in  the 
person  of  his  friend,  of  having  seen  and  chosen,  the 
air  of  achieved  possession  of  those  vague  qualities 
and  quantities  that  collectively  figured  to  him  as  the 
advantage  snatched  from  lucky  chances.  Without 
pomp  or  circumstance,  certainly,  as  her  original 
address  to  him,  equally  with  his  own  response,  had 
been,  he  would  have  sketched  to  himself  his  impres 
sion  of  her  as:  "Well,  she's  more  thoroughly  civil 
ized  — ! "  If  "  More  thoroughly  than  whom  ?  "  would 
not  have  been  for  him  a  sequel  to  this  remark,  that 
was  just  by  reason  of  his  deep  consciousness  of  the 
bearing  of  his  comparison. 

9 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

The  amusement,  at  all  events,  of  a  civilisation 
intenser  was  what  —  familiar  compatriot  as  she  was, 
with  the  full  tone  of  the  compatriot  and  the  rattling 
link  not  with  mystery  but  only  with  dear  dyspeptic 
Waymarsh  —  she  appeared  distinctly  to  promise. 
His  pause  while  he  felt  in  his  overcoat  was  positively 
the  pause  of  confidence,  and  it  enabled  his  eyes  to 
make  out  as  much  of  a  case  for  her,  in  proportion,  as 
her  own  made  out  for  himself.  She  affected  him  as 
almost  insolently  young;  but  an  easily  carried  five- 
and-thirty  could  still  do  that.  She  was,  however,  like 
himself,  marked  and  wan ;  only  it  naturally  could  n't 
have  been  known  to  him  how  much  a  spectator  look 
ing  from  one  to  the  other  might  have  discerned  that 
they  had  in  common.  It  would  n't  for  such  a  spec 
tator  have  been  altogether  insupposable  that,  each 
so  finely  brown  and  so  sharply  spare,  each  confessing 
so  to  dents  of  surface  and  aids  to  sight,  to  a  dispro 
portionate  nose  and  a  head  delicately  or  grossly 
grizzled,  they  might  have  been  brother  and  sister.  On 
this  ground  indeed  there  would  have  been  a  residuum 
of  difference;  such  a  sister  having  surely  known  in 
respect  to  such  a  brother  the  extremity  of  separation, 
and  such  a  brother  now  feeling  in  respect  to  such  a 
sister  the  extremity  of  surprise.  Surprise,  it  was  true, 
was  not  on  the  other  hand  what  the  eyes  of  Strether's 
friend  most  showed  him  while  she  gave  him,  stroking 
her  gloves  smoother,  the  time  he  appreciated.  They 
had  taken  hold  of  him  straightway,  measuring  him 
up  and  down  as  if  they  knew  how ;  as  if  he  were  human 
material  they  had  already  in  some  sort  handled. 
Their  possessor  was  in  truth,  it  may  be  communicated, 

10 


BOOK  FIRST 

the  mistress  of  a  hundred  cases  or  categories,  recep 
tacles  of  the  mind,  subdivisions  for  convenience, 
in  which,  from  a  full  experience,  she  pigeon-holed 
her  fellow  mortals  with  a  hand  as  free  as  that  of  a 
compositor  scattering  type.  She  was  as  equipped  in 
this  particular  as  Strether  was  the  reverse,  and  it 
made  an  opposition  between  them  which  he  might 
well  have  shrunk  from  submitting  to  if  he  had  fully 
suspected  it.  So  far  as  he  did  suspect  it  he  was  on 
the  contrary,  after  a  short  shake  of  his  consciousness, 
as  pleasantly  passive  as  might  be.  He  really  had  a 
sort  of  sense  of  what  she  knew.  He  had  quite  the 
sense  that  she  knew  things  he  did  n't,  and  though 
this  was  a  concession  that  in  general  he  found  not 
easy  to  make  to  women,  he  made  it  now  as  good- 
humouredly  as  if  it  lifted  a  burden.  His  eyes  were  so 
quiet  behind  his  eternal  nippers  that  they  might 
almost  have  been  absent  without  changing  his  face, 
which  took  its  expression  mainly,  and  not  least  its 
stamp  of  sensibility,  from  other  sources,  surface  and 
grain  and  form.  He  joined  his  guide  in  an  instant, 
and  then  felt  she  had  profited  still  better  than  he  by 
his  having  been,  for  the  moments  just  mentioned,  so 
at  the  disposal  of  her  intelligence.  She  knew  even 
intimate  things  about  him  that  he  had  n't  yet  told 
her  and  perhaps  never  would.  He  was  n't  unaware 
that  he  had  told  her  rather  remarkably  many  for 
the  time,  but  these  were  not  the  real  ones.  Some 
of  the  real  ones,  however,  precisely,  were  what  she 
knew. 

They  were  to  pass  again  through  the  hall  of  the  inn 
to  get  into  the  street,  and  it  was  here  she  presently 

ii 


THE  AMBASSADORS 
checked  him  with  a  question.   "  Have  you  looked  up 


my  name  ?'' 

He  could  only  stop  with  a  laugh.  "  Have  you  looked 
up  mine?" 

;      "  Oh  dear,  yes  —  as  soon  as  you  left  me.  I  went  to 
the  office  and  asked.  Had  n't  you  better  do  the  same  ?" 

He  wondered.  "Find  out  who  you  are?  —  after 
the  uplifted  young  woman  there  has  seen  us  thus 
scrape  acquaintance!" 

She  laughed  on  her  side  now  at  the  shade  of  alarm 
in  his  amusement.  "Is  n't  it  a  reason  the  more?  If 
what  you  're  afraid  of  is  the  injury  for  me  —  my  being 
seen  to  walk  off  with  a  gentleman  who  has  to  ask  who 
I  am  —  I  assure  you  I  don't  in  the  least  mind.  Here, 
however,"  she  continued,  "is  my  card,  and  as  I  find 
there's  something  else  again  I  have  to  say  at  the 
office,  you  can  just  study  it  during  the  moment  I  leave 
you." 

She  left  him  after  he  had  taken  from  her  the  small 
pasteboard  she  had  extracted  from  her  pocket-book, 
and  he  had  extracted  another  from  his  own,  to  ex 
change  with  it,  before  she  came  back.  He  read  thus 
the  simple  designation  "Maria  Gostrey,"  to  which 
was  attached,  in  a  corner  of  the  card,  with  a  number, 
the  name  of  a  street,  presumably  in  Paris,  without 
other  appreciable  identity  than  its  foreignness.  He 
put  the  card  into  his  waistcoat  pocket,  keeping  his 
own  meanwhile  in  evidence;  and  as  he  leaned  against 
the  door-post  he  met  with  the  smile  of  a  straying 
thought  what  the  expanse  before  the  hotel  offered  to 
his  view.  It  was  positively  droll  to  him  that  he  should 
already  have  Maria  Gostrey,  whoever  she  was  —  of 

12 


BOOK  FIRST 

which  he  had  n't  really  the  least  idea  —  in  a  place 
of  safe  keeping.  He  had  somehow  an  assurance  that 
he  should  carefully  preserve  the  little  token  he  had 
just  tucked  in.  He  gazed  with  unseeing  lingering 
eyes  as  he  followed  some  of  the  implications  of  his 
act,  asking  himself  if  he  really  felt  admonished  to 
qualify  it  as  disloyal.  It  was  prompt,  it  was  possibly 
even  premature,  and  there  was  little  doubt  of  the 
expression  of  face  the  sight  of  it  would  have  pro 
duced  in  a  certain  person.  But  if  it  was  "wrong"  — 
why  then  he  had  better  not  have  come  out  at  all.  At 
this,  poor  man,  had  he  already  —  and  even  before 
meeting  Waymarsh  —  arrived.  He  had  believed  he 
had  a  limit,  but  the  limit  had  been  transcended 
within  thirty-six  hours.  By  how  long  a  space  on  the 
plane  of  manners,  or  even  of  morals,  moreover,  he  felt 
still  more  sharply  after  Maria  Gostrey  had  come 
back  to  him  and  with  a  gay  decisive  "So  now  — !" 
led  him  forth  into  the  world.  This  counted,  it  struck 
him  as  he  walked  beside  her  with  his  overcoat  on  an 
arm,  his  umbrella  under  another  and  his  personal 
pasteboard  a  little  stiffly  retained  between  forefinger 
and  thumb,  this  struck  him  as  really,  in  comparison, 
his  introduction  to  things.  It  had  n't  been  "Europe" 
at  Liverpool,  no  —  not  even  in  the  dreadful  delightful 
impressive  streets  the  night  before  —  to  the  extent 
his  present  companion  made  it  so.  She  had  n't  yet 
done  that  so  much  as  when,  after  their  walk  had  lasted 
a  few  minutes  and  he  had  had  time  to  wonder  if 
a  couple  of  sidelong  glances  from  her  meant  that  he 
had  best  have  put  on  gloves,  she  almost  pulled  him 
up  with  an  amused  challenge.  "  But  why  —  fondly 

13 


THE    AMBASSADORS 

as  it 's  so  easy  to  imagine  your  clinging  to  it  —  don't 
you  put  it  away  ?  Or  if  it 's  an  inconvenience  to  you 
to  carry  it,  one 's  often  glad  to  have  one's  card  back. 
The  fortune  one  spends  in  them ! " 

Then  he  saw  both  that  his  way  of  marching  with 
his  own  prepared  tribute  had  affected  her  as  a  devia 
tion  in  one  of  those  directions  he  could  n't  yet  meas 
ure,  and  that  she  supposed  this  emblem  to  be  still 
the  one  he  had  received  from  her.  He  accordingly 
handed  her  the  card  as  if  in  restitution,  but  as  soon 
as  she  had  it  she  felt  the  difference  and,  with  her  eyes 
on  it,  stopped  short  for  apology.  "I  like,"  she  ob 
served,  "your  name." 

"Oh,"  he  answered,  "you  won't  have  heard  of  it!" 
Yet  he  had  his  reasons  for  not  being  sure  but  that  she 
perhaps  might. 

Ah  it  was  but  too  visible !  She  read  it  over  again 
as  one  who  had  never  seen  it.  "'Mr.  Lewis  Lambert 
Strether ' "  —  she  sounded  it  almost  as  freely  as  for 
any  stranger.  She  repeated  however  that  she  liked  it 
—  "particularly  the  Lewis  Lambert.  It's  the  name 
of  a  novel  of  Balzac's." 

"Oh  I  know  that!"  said  Strether. 

"But  the  novel's  an  awfully  bad  one." 

"  I  know  that  too,"  Strether  smiled.  To  which  he 
added  with  an  irrelevance  that  was  only  superficial : 
"  I  come  from  Woollett  Massachusetts."  It  made  her 
for  some  reason  —  the  irrelevance  or  whatever  — 
laugh.  Balzac  had  described  many  cities,  but  had  n't 
described  Woollett  Massachusetts.  "You  say  that," 
she  returned,  "  as  if  you  wanted  one  immediately  to 
know  the  worst." 


BOOK  FIRST 

"Oh  I  think  it's  a  thing,"  he  said,  "that  you  must 
already  have  made  out.  I  feel  it  so  that  I  certainly 
must  look  it,  speak  it,  and,  as  people  say  there, '  act ' 
it.  It  sticks  out  of  me,  and  you  knew  surely  for  your 
self  as  soon  as  you  looked  at  me/' 

"  The  worst,  you  mean  ? " 

"Well,  the  fact  of  where  I  come  from.  There  at  any 
rate  it  is;  so  that  you  won't  be  able,  if  anything  hap 
pens,  to  say  I  've  not  been  straight  with  you." 

"  I  see "  —  and  Miss  Gostrey  looked  really  inter 
ested  in  the  point  he  had  made.  "But  what  do  you 
think  of  as  happening  ? " 

Though  he  was  n't  shy  —  which  was  rather  anom 
alous  —  Strether  gazed  about  without  meeting  her 
eyes;  a  motion  that  was  frequent  with  him  in  talk, 
yet  of  which  his  words  often  seemed  not  at  all  the 
effect.  "Why  that  you  should  find  me  too  hopeless." 
With  which  they  walked  on  again  together  while  she 
answered,  as  they  went,  that  the  most  "hopeless"  of 
her  countryfolk  were  in  general  precisely  those  she 
liked  best.  All  sorts  of  other  pleasant  small  things  — 
small  things  that  were  yet  large  for  him  —  flowered 
in  the  air  of  the  occasion ;  but  the  bearing  of  the  oc 
casion  itself  on  matters  still  remote  concerns  us  too 
closely  to  permit  us  to  multiply  our  illustrations.  Two 
or  three,  however,  in  truth,  we  should  perhaps  re 
gret  to  lose.  The  tortuous  wall  —  girdle,  long  since 
snapped,  of  the  little  swollen  city,  half  held  in  place 
by  careful  civic  hands  —  wanders  in  narrow  file  be 
tween  parapets  smoothed  by  peaceful  generations, 
pausing  here  and  there  for  a  dismantled  gate  or  a 
bridged  gap,  with  rises  and  drops,  steps  up  and  steps 

15 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

down,  queer  twists,  queer  contacts,  peeps  into  homely 
streets  and  under  the  brows  of  gables,  views  of  cathe 
dral  tower  and  waterside  fields,  of  huddled  English 
town  and  ordered  English  country.  Too  deep  almost 
for  words  was  the  delight  of  these  things  to  Strether; 
yet  as  deeply  mixed  with  it  were  certain  images  of  his 
inward  picture.  He  had  trod  this  walk  in  the  far-off 
time,  at  twenty-five;  but  that,  instead  of  spoiling  it, 
only  enriched  it  for  present  feeling  and  marked  his 
renewal  as  a  thing  substantial  enough  to  share.  It 
was  with  Waymarsh  he  should  have  shared  it,  and 
he  was  now  accordingly  taking  from  him  something 
that  was  his  due.  He  looked  repeatedly  at  his  watch, 
and  when  he  had  done  so  for  the  fifth  time  Miss 
Gostrey  took  him  up. 

"  You  're  doing  something  that  you  think  not  right." 

It  so  touched  the  place  that  he  quite  changed  colour 
and  his  laugh  grew  almost  awkward.  "Am  I  enjoying 
it  as  much  as  that?" 

"You're  not  enjoying  it,  I  think,  so  much  as  you 
ought." 

"  I  see "  —  he  appeared  thoughtfully  to  agree. 
"Great  is  my  privilege." 

"  Oh  it 's  not  your  privilege !  It  has  nothing  to  do 
with  me.  It  has  to  do  with  yourself.  Your  failure's 
general." 

"Ah  there  you  are!"  he  laughed.  "It's  the  failure 
ofWoollett.  That's  general." 

"The  failure  to  enjoy,"  Miss  Gostrey  explained,  "is 
what  I  mean." 

"  Precisely.  Woollett  is  n't  sure  it  ought  to  enjoy. 
If  it  were  it  would.  But  it  has  n't,  poor  thing," 

16 


BOOK  FIRST 

Strether  continued,  "  any  one  to  show  it  how.  It 's  not 
like  me.  I  have  somebody." 

They  had  stopped,  in  the  afternoon  sunshine  — 
constantly  pausing,  in  their  stroll,  for  the  sharper 
sense  of  what  they  saw — and  Strether  rested  on  one 
of  the  high  sides  of  the  old  stony  groove  of  the  little 
rampart.  He  leaned  back  on  this  support  with  his  face 
to  the  tower  of  the  cathedral,  now  admirably  com 
manded  by  their  station,  the  high  red-brown  mass, 
square  and  subordinately  spired  and  crocketed,  re 
touched  and  restored,  but  charming  to  his  long-sealed 
eyes  and  with  the  first  swallows  of  the  year  weaving 
their  flight  all  round  it.  Miss  Gostrey  lingered  near 
him,  full  of  an  air,  to  which  she  more  and  more  justi 
fied  her  right,  of  understanding  the  effect  of  things. 
She  quite  concurred.  "You've  indeed  somebody." 
And  she  added :  "  I  wish  you  would  let  me  show  you 
how!" 

"Oh  I'm  afraid  of  you!"  he  cheerfully  pleaded. 

She  kept  on  him  a  moment,  through  her  glasses  and 
through  his  own,  a  certain  pleasant  pointedness. 
"Ah  no,  you're  not!  You're  not  in  the  least,  thank 
goodness !  If  you  had  been  we  should  n't  so  soon 
have  found  ourselves  here  together.  I  think,"  she 
comfortably  concluded,  "you  trust  me." 

"  I  think  I  do !  —  but  that 's  exactly  what  I  'm  afraid 
of.  I  should  n't  mind  if  I  did  n't.  It 's  falling  thus 
in  twenty  minutes  so  utterly  into  your  hands.  I  dare 
say,"  Strether  continued,  "  it 's  a  sort  of  thing  you  're 
thoroughly  familiar  with ;  but  nothing  more  extraor 
dinary  has  ever  happened  to  me." 

She  watched  him  with  all  her  kindness.  "That 

17 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

means  simply  that  you've  recognised  me  —  which 
is  rather  beautiful  and  rare.  You  see  what  I  am." 
As  on  this,  however,  he  protested,  with  a  good-hum 
oured  headshake,  a  resignation  of  any  such  claim,  she 
had  a  moment  of  explanation.  "  If  you  '11  only  come 
on  further  as  you  have  come  you  '11  at  any  rate  make 
out.  My  own  fate  has  been  too  many  for  me,  and  I  've 
succumbed  to  it.  I  'm  a  general  guide  —  to  '  Europe,' 
don't  you  know  ?  I  wait  for  people  —  I  put  them 
through.  I  pick  them  up  —  I  set  them  down.  I  'm 
a  sort  of  superior  *  courier-maid/  I'm  a  companion 
at  large.  I  take  people,  as  I've  told  you,  about.  I 
never  sought  it  —  it  has  come  to  me.  It  has  been  my 
fate,  and  one's  fate  one  accepts.  It 's  a  dreadful  thing 
to  have  to  say,  in  so  wicked  a  world,  but  I  verily  be 
lieve  that,  such  as  you  see  me,  there 's  nothing  I  don't 
know.  I  know  all  the  shops  and  the  prices  —  but  I 
know  worse  things  still.  I  bear  on  my  back  the  huge 
load  of  our  national  consciousness,  or,  in  other  words 
— for  it  comes  to  that — of  our  nation  itself.  Of  what 
is  our  nation  composed  but  of  the  men  and  women 
individually  on  my  shoulders  ?  I  don't  do  it,  you 
know,  for  any  particular  advantage.  I  don't  do  it, 
for  instance  —  some  people  do,  you  know  —  for 
money." 

Strether  could  only  listen  and  wonder  and  weigh  his 
chance.  "  And  yet,  affected  as  you  are  then  to  so  many 
of  your  clients,  you  can  scarcely  be  said  to  do  it  for  love." 
He  waited  a  moment.  "  How  do  we  reward  you  ? " 

She  had  her  own  hesitation,  but  "You  don't!"  she 
finally  returned,  setting  him  again  in  motion.  They 
went  on,  but  in  a  few  minutes,  though  while  still 

18 


BOOK  FIRST 

thinking  over  what  she  had  said,  he  once  more  took 
out  his  watch;  mechanically,  unconsciously  and  as 
if  made  nervous  by  the  mere  exhilaration  of  what 
struck  him  as  her  strange  and  cynical  wit.  He  looked 
at  the  hour  without  seeing  it,  and  then,  on  something 
again  said  by  his  companion,  had  another  pause. 
"  You  're  really  in  terror  of  him." 

He  smiled  a  smile  that  he  almost  felt  to  be  sickly. 
"  Now  you  can  see  why  I  'm  afraid  of  you." 

"Because  I've  such  illuminations?  Why  they're 
all  for  your  help !  It 's  what  I  told  you,"  she  added, 
"just  now.  You  feel  as  if  this  were  wrong." 

He  fell  back  once  more,  settling  himself  against  the 
parapet  as  if  to  hear  more  about  it.  "Then  get  me 
out!" 

Her  face  fairly  brightened  for  the  joy  of  the  appeal, 
but,  as  if  it  were  a  question  of  immediate  action,  she 
visibly '  considered.  "  Out  of  waiting  for  him  ?  —  of 
seeing  him  at  all  ? " 

"Oh  no  —  not  that,"  said  poor  Strether,  looking 
grave.  "  I  've  got  to  wait  for  him  —  and  I  want  very 
much  to  see  him.  But  out  of  the  terror.  You  did  put 
your  finger  on  it  a  few  minutes  ago.  It 's  general,  but 
it  avails  itself  of  particular  occasions.  That 's  what 
it 's  doing  for  me  now.  I  'm  always  considering  some 
thing  else;  something  else,  I  mean,  than  the  thing  of 
the  moment.  The  obsession  of  the  other  thing  is  the 
terror.  I  'm  considering  at  present  for  instance  some 
thing  else  than  you" 

She  listened  with  charming  earnestness.  "Oh  you 
ought  n't  to  do  that!" 

"  It 's  what  I  admit.   Make  it  then  impossible." 

19 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

She  continued  to  think.  "Is  it  really  an  'order' 
from  you  ?  —  that  I  shall  take  the  job  ?  Will  you  give 
yourself  up  ? " 

Poor  Strether  heaved  his  sigh.  "  If  I  only  could ! 
But  that 's  the  deuce  of  it  —  that  I  never  can.  No — 
I  can't." 

She  was  n't,  however,  discouraged.  "  But  you  want 
to  at  least  ? " 

"Oh  unspeakably!" 

"Ah  then,  if  you'll  try!"  —  and  she  took  over  the 
job,  as  she  had  called  it,  on  the  spot.  "Trust  me!" 
she  exclaimed ;  and  the  action  of  this,  as  they  retraced 
their  steps,  was  presently  to  make  him  pass  his  hand 
into  her  arm  in  the  manner  of  a  benign  dependent 
paternal  old  person  who  wishes  to  be  "nice"  to  a 
younger  one.  If  he  drew  it  out  again  indeed  as  they 
approached  the  inn  this  may  have  been  because,  after 
more  talk  had  passed  between  them,  the  relation  of 
age,  or  at  least  of  experience  —  which,  for  that  mat 
ter,  had  already  played  to  and  fro  with  some  freedom 
—  affected  him  as  incurring  a  readjustment.  It  was 
at  all  events  perhaps  lucky  that  they  arrived  in  suf 
ficiently  separate  fashion  within  range  of  the  hotel- 
door.  The  young  lady  they  had  left  in  the  glass  cage 
watched  as  if  she  had  come  to  await  them  on  the 
threshold.  At  her  side  stood  a  person  equally  inter 
ested,  by  his  attitude,  in  their  return,  and  the  effect 
of  the  sight  of  whom  was  instantly  to  determine  for 
Strether  another  of  those  responsive  arrests  that  we 
have  had  so  repeatedly  to  note.  He  left  it  to  Miss 
Gostrey  to  name,  with  the  fine  full  bravado,  as  it 
almost  struck  him,  of  her  "  Mr.  Waymarsh ! "  what 

20 


BOOK  FIRST 

was  to  have  been,  what — he  more  than  ever  felt  as  his 
short  stare  of  suspended  welcome  took  things  in  — 
would  have  been,  but  for  herself,  his  doom.  It  was 
already  upon  him  even  at  that  distance  —  Mr.  Way- 
marsh  was  for  bis  part  joyless. 


II 


HE  had  none  the  less  to  confess  to  this  friend  that 
evening  that  he  knew  almost  nothing  about  her,  and 
it  was  a  deficiency  that  Waymarsh,  even  with  his 
memory  refreshed  by  contact,  by  her  own  prompt 
and  lucid  allusions  and  enquiries,  by  their  having 
publicly  partaken  of  dinner  in  her  company,  and  by 
another  stroll,  to  which  she  was  not  a  stranger,  out 
into  the  town  to  look  at  the  cathedral  by  moonlight  — 
it  was  a  blank  that  the  resident  of  Milrose,  though 
admitting  acquaintance  with  the  Munsters,  professed 
himself  unable  to  fill.  He  had  no  recollection  of  Miss 
Gostrey,  and  two  or  three  questions  that  she  put 
to  him  about  those  members  of  his  circle  had,  to 
Strether's  observation,  the  same  effect  he  himself  had 
already  more  directly  felt  —  the  effect  of  appearing 
to  place  all  knowledge,  for  the  time,  on  this  original 
woman's  side.  It  interested  him  indeed  to  mark  the 
limits  of  any  such  relation  for  her  with  his  friend  as 
there  could  possibly  be  a  question  of,  and  it  particu 
larly  struck  him  that  they  were  to  be  marked  alto 
gether  in  Waymarsh's  quarter.  This  added  to  his  own 
sense  of  having  gone  far  with  her  —  gave  him  an 
early  illustration  of  a  much  shorter  course.  There  was 
a  certitude  he  immediately  grasped  —  a  conviction 
that  Waymarsh  would  quite  fail,  as  it  were,  and  on 
whatever  degree  of  acquaintance,  to  profit  by  her. 
There  had  been  after  the  first  interchange  among 
22 


BOOK  FIRST 

the  three  a  talk  of  some  five  minutes  in  the  hall,  and 
then  the  two  men  had  adjourned  to  the  garden,  Miss 
Gostrey  for  the  time  disappearing.  Strether  in  due 
course  accompanied  his  friend  to  the  room  he  had 
bespoken  and  had,  before  going  out,  scrupulously 
visited;  where  at  the  end  of  another  half-hour  he 
had  no  less  discreetly  left  him.  On  leaving  him 
he  repaired  straight  to  his  own  room,  but  with  the 
prompt  effect  of  feeling  the  compass  of  that  cham 
ber  resented  by  his  condition.  There  he  enjoyed  at 
once  the  first  consequence  of  their  reunion.  A  place 
was  too  small  for  him  after  it  that  had  seemed  large 
enough  before.  He  had  awaited  it  with  something 
he  would  have  been  sorry,  have  been  almost  ashamed 
not  to  recognise  as  emotion,  yet  with  a  tacit  assump 
tion  at  the  same  time  that  emotion  would  in  the  event 
find  itself  relieved.  The  actual  oddity  was  that  he  was 
only  more  excited ;  and  his  excitement  —  to  which  in 
deed  he  would  have  found  it  difficult  instantly  to  give 
a  name  —  brought  him  once  more  downstairs  and 
caused  him  for  some  minutes  vaguely  to  wander.  He 
went  once  more  to  the  garden;  he  looked  into  the 
public  room,  found  Miss  Gostrey  writing  letters  and 
backed  out;  he  roamed,  fidgeted  and  wasted  time; 
but  he  was  to  have  his  more  intimate  session  with  his 
friend  before  the  evening  closed. 

It  was  late  —  not  till  Strether  had  spent  an  hour 
upstairs  with  him  —  that  this  subject  consented  to  be 
take  himself  to  doubtful  rest.  Dinner  and  the  sub 
sequent  stroll  by  moonlight  —  a  dream,  on  Strether's 
part,  of  romantic  effects  rather  prosaically  merged  in 
a  mere  missing  of  thicker  coats  —  had  measurably 

23 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

intervened,  and  this  midnight  conference  was  the  re 
sult  of  Waymarsh's  having  (when  they  were  free,  as 
he  put  it,  of  their  fashionable  friend)  found  the  smok 
ing-room  not  quite  what  he  wanted,  and  yet  bed  what 
he  wanted  less.  His  most  frequent  form  of  words  was 
that  he  knew  himself,  and  they  were  applied  on  this 
occasion  to  his  certainty  of  not  sleeping.  He  knew 
himself  well  enough  to  know  that  he  should  have  a 
night  of  prowling  unless  he  should  succeed,  as  a  pre 
liminary,  in  getting  prodigiously  tired.  If  the  effort 
directed  to  this  end  involved  till  a  late  hour  the  pre 
sence  of  Strether  —  consisted,  that  is,  in  the  detention 
of  the  latter  for  full  discourse  —  there  was  yet  an 
impression  of  minor  discipline  involved  for  our  friend 
in  the  picture  Waymarsh  made  as  he  sat  in  trousers 
and  shirt  on  the  edge  of  his  couch.  With  his  long  legs 
extended  and  his  large  back  much  bent,  he  nursed 
alternately,  for  an  almost  incredible  time,  his  elbows 
and  his  beard.  He  struck  his  visitor  as  extremely,  as 
almost  wilfully  uncomfortable ;  yet  what  had  this  been 
for  Strether,  from  that  first  glimpseof  him  disconcerted 
in  the  porch  of  the  hotel,  but  the  predominant  note  ? 
The  discomfort  was  in  a  manner  contagious,  as  well  as 
also  in  a  manner  inconsequent  and  unfounded;  the 
visitor  felt  that  unless  he  should  get  used  to  it  —  or 
unless  Waymarsh  himself  should  —  it  would  consti 
tute  a  menace  for  his  own  prepared,  his  own  already 
confirmed,  consciousness  of  the  agreeable.  On  their 
first  going  up  together  to  the  room  Strether  had  se 
lected  for  him  Waymarsh  had  looked  it  over  in  silence 
and  with  a  sigh  that  represented  for  his  companion,  if 
not  the  habit  of  disapprobation,  at  least  the  despair 

24 


BOOK  FIRST 

of  felicity;  and  this  look  had  recurred  to  Strether  as 
the  key  of  much  he  had  since  observed.  "  Europe," 
he  had  begun  to  gather  from  these  things,  had  up  to 
now  rather  failed  of  its  message  to  him ;  he  had  n't  got 
into  tune  with  it  and  had  at  the  end  of  three  months 
almost  renounced  any  such  expectation. 

He  really  appeared  at  present  to  insist  on  that  by 
just  perching  there  with  the  gas  in  his  eyes.  This  of 
itself  somehow  conveyed  the  futility  of  single  recti 
fications  in  a  multiform  failure.  He  had  a  large  hand 
some  head  and  a  large  sallow  seamed  face  —  a  strik 
ing  significant  physiognomic  total,  the  upper  range 
of  which,  the  great  political  brow,  the  thick  loose 
hair,  the  dark  fuliginous  eyes,  recalled  even  to  a  gener 
ation  whose  standard  had  dreadfully  deviated  the 
impressive  image,  familiar  by  engravings  and  busts, 
of  some  great  national  worthy  of  the  earlier  part  of 
the  mid-century.  He  was  of  the  personal  type  —  and 
it  was  an  element  in  the  power  and  promise  that  in 
their  early  time  Strether  had  found  in  him  —  of  the 
American  statesman,  the  statesman  trained  in  "Con 
gressional  halls,"  of  an  elder  day.  The  legend  had 
been  in  later  years  that  as  the  lower  part  of  his  face, 
which  was  weak,  and  slightly  crooked,  spoiled  the 
likeness,  this  was  the  real  reason  for  the  growth  of  his 
beard,  which  might  have  seemed  to  spoil  it  for  those 
not  in  the  secret.  He  shook  his  mane;  he  fixed,  with 
his  admirable  eyes,  his  auditor  or  his  observer;  he 
wore  no  glasses  and  had  a  way,  partly  formidable, 
yet  also  partly  encouraging,  as  from  a  representative 
to  a  constituent,  of  looking  very  hard  at  those  who 
approached  him.  He  met  you  as  if  you  had  knocked 

25 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

and  he  had  bidden  you  enter.  Strether,  who  had  n't 
seen  him  for  so  long  an  interval,  apprehended  him  now 
with  a  freshness  of  taste,  and  had  perhaps  never  done 
him  such  ideal  justice.  The  head  was  bigger,  the  eyes 
finer,  than  they  need  have  been  for  the  career;  but 
that  only  meant,  after  all,  that  the  career  was  itself 
expressive.  What  it  expressed  at  midnight  in  the 
gas-glaring  bedroom  at  Chester  was  that  the  subject 
of  it  had,  at  the  end  of  years,  barely  escaped,  by  flight 
in  time,  a  general  nervous  collapse.  But  this  very 
proof  of  the  full  life,  as  the  full  life  was  understood  at 
Milrose,  would  have  made  to  Strether' s  imagination 
an  element  in  which  Waymarsh  could  have  floated 
easily  had  he  only  consented  to  float.  Alas  nothing  so 
little  resembled  floating  as  the  rigour  with  which,  on 
the  edge  of  his  bed,  he  hugged  his  posture  of  pro 
longed  impermanence.  It  suggested  to  his  comrade 
something  that  always,  when  kept  up,  worried  him 
—  a  person  established  in  a  railway-coach  with  a  for 
ward  inclination.  It  represented  the  angle  at  which 
poor  Waymarsh  was  to  sit  through  the  ordeal  of 
Europe. 

Thanks  to  the  stress  of  occupation,  the  strain  of 
professions,  the  absorption  and  embarrassment  of 
each,  they  had  not,  at  home,  during  years  before  this 
sudden  brief  and  almost  bewildering  reign  of  com 
parative  ease>  found  so  much  as  a  day  for  a  meeting; 
a  fact  that  was  in  some  degree  an  explanation  of  the 
sharpness  with  which  most  of  his  friend's  features 
stood  out  to  Strether.  Those  he  had  lost  sight  of  since 
the  early  time  came  back  to  him ;  others  that  it  was 
never  possible  to  forget  struck  him  now  as  sitting, 

26 


BOOK  FIRST 

clustered  and  expectant,  like  a  somewhat  defiant 
family-group,  on  the  door-step  of  their  residence.  The 
room  was  narrow  for  its  length,  and  the  occupant  of 
the  bed  thrust  so  far  a  pair  of  slippered  feet  that  the 
visitor  had  almost  to  step  over  them  in  his  recurrent 
rebounds  from  his  chair  to  fidget  back  and  forth. 
There  were  marks  the  friends  made  on  things  to  talk 
about,  and  on  things  not  to,  and  one  of  the  latter  in 
particular  fell  like  the  tap  of  chalk  on  the  blackboard. 
Married  at  thirty,  Waymarsh  had  not  lived  with  his 
wife  for  fifteen  years,  and  it  came  up  vividly  between 
them  in  the  glare  of  the  gas  that  Strether  was  n't  to 
ask  about  her.  He  knew  they  were  still  separate  and 
that  she  lived  at  hotels,  travelled  in  Europe,  painted 
her  face  and  wrote  her  husband  abusive  letters,  of 
not  one  of  which,  to  a  certainty,  that  sufferer  spared 
himself  the  perusal;  but  he  respected  without  dif 
ficulty  the  cold  twilight  that  had  settled  on  this  side 
of  his  companion's  life.  It  was  a  province  in  which 
mystery  reigned  and  as  to  which  Waymarsh  had  never 
spoken  the  informing  word.  Strether,  who  wanted  to 
do  him  the  highest  justice  wherever  he  could  do  it, 
singularly  admired  him  for  the  dignity  of  this  reserve, 
and  even  counted  it  as  one  of  the  grounds  —  grounds 
all  handled  and  numbered  —  for  ranking  him,  in  the 
range  of  their  acquaintance,  as  a  success.  He  was  a 
success,  Waymarsh,  in  spite  of  overwork,  or  prostra 
tion,  of  sensible  shrinkage,  of  his  wife's  letters  and  of 
his  not  liking  Europe.  Strether  would  have  reckoned 
his  own  career  less  futile  had  he  been  able  to  put  into 
it  anything  so  handsome  as  so  much  fine  silence.  One 
might  one's  self  easily  have  left  Mrs.  Waymarsh ;  and 

27 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

one  would  assuredly  have  paid  one's  tribute  to  the 
ideal  in  covering  with  that  attitude  the  derision  of 
having  been  left  by  her.  Her  husband  had  held  his 
tongue  and  had  made  a  large  income ;  and  these  were 
in  especial  the  achievements  as  to  which  Strether 
envied  him.  Our  friend  had  had  indeed  on  his  side 
too  a  subject  for  silence,  which  he  fully  appreciated ; 
but  it  was  a  matter  of  a  different  sort,  and  the  figure 
of  the  income  he  had  arrived  at  had  never  been  high 
enough  to  look  any  one  in  the  face. 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  quite  see  what  you  require  it  for. 
You  don't  appear  sick  to  speak  of."  It  was  of  Europe 
Waymarsh  thus  finally  spoke. 

"Well,"  said  Strether,  who  fell  as  much  as  possible 
into  step,  "I  guess  I  don't  feel  sick  now  that  I've 
started.  But  I  had  pretty  well  run  down  before  I  did 
start." 

Waymarsh  raised  his  melancholy  look.  "  Ain't  you 
about  up  to  your  usual  average  ? " 

It  was  not  quite  pointedly  sceptical,  but  it  seemed 
somehow  a  plea  for  the  purest  veracity,  and  it  thereby 
affected  our  friend  as  the  very  voice  of  Mil  rose.  He 
had  long  since  made  a  mental  distinction  —  though 
never  in  truth  daring  to  betray  it  —  between  the  voice 
of  Milrose  and  the  voice  even  of  Woollett.  It  was 
the  former,  he  felt,  that  was  most  in  the  real  tradition. 
There  had  been  occasions  in  his  past  when  the  sound 
of  it  had  reduced  him  to  temporary  confusion,  and 
the  present,  for  some  reason,  suddenly  became  such 
another.  It  was  nevertheless  no  light  matter  that  the 
very  effect  of  his  confusion  should  be  to  make  him 
again  prevaricate.  "That  description  hardly  does 

28 


BOOK  FIRST 

justice  to  a  man  to  whom  it  has  done  such  a  lot  of 
good  to  see  you.1' 

Waymarsh  fixed  on  his  washing-stand  the  silent 
detached  stare  with  which  Milrose  in  person,  as  it 
were,  might  have  marked  the  unexpectedness  of  a 
compliment  from  Woollett;  and  Strether,  for  his  part, 
felt  once  more  like  Woollett  in  person.  "  I  mean,"  his 
friend  presently  continued,  "that  your  appearance 
is  n't  as  bad  as  I  've  seen  it :  it  compares  favourably 
with  what  it  was  when  I  last  noticed  it."  On  this  ap 
pearance  Waymarsh' s  eyes  yet  failed  to  rest ;  it  was 
almost  as  if  they  obeyed  an  instinct  of  propriety,  and 
the  effect  was  still  stronger  when,  always  considering 
the  basin  and  jug,  he  added :  "You  've  filled  out  some 
since  then." 

"I'm  afraid  I  have,"  Strether  laughed:  "one  does 
fill  out  some  with  all  one  takes  in,  and  I  've  taken  in, 
I  dare  say,  more  than  I've  natural  room  for.  I  was 
dog-tired  when  I  sailed."  It  had  the  oddest  sound  of 
cheerfulness. 

"7  was  dog-tired,"  his  companion  returned,  "when 
I  arrived,  and  it 's  this  wild  hunt  for  rest  that  takes  all 
the  life  out  of  me.  The  fact  is,  Strether  —  and  it 's  a 
comfort  to  have  you  here  at  last  to  say  it  to;  though 
I  don't  know,  after  all,  that  I  've  really  waited ;  I  've 
told  it  to  people  I  Ve  met  in  the  cars  —  the  fact  is, 
such  a  country  as  this  ain't  my  kind  of  country  any 
way.  There  ain't  a  country  I've  seen  over  here  that 
does  seem  my  kind.  Oh  I  don't  say  but  what  there  are 
plenty  of  pretty  places  and  remarkable  old  things; 
but  the  trouble  is  that  I  don't  seem  to  feel  anywhere 
in  tune.  That's  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  suppose 

29 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

I  Ve  gained  so  little.  I  have  n't  had  the  first  sign  of 
that  lift  I  was  led  to  expect."  With  this  he  broke  out 
more  earnestly.  "  Look  here  —  I  want  to  go  back." 

His  eyes  were  all  attached  to  Strether' s  now,  for 
he  was  one  of  the  men  who  fully  face  you  when  they 
talk  of  themselves.  This  enabled  his  friend  to  look 
at  him  hard  and  immediately  to  appear  to  the  highest 
advantage  in  his  eyes  by  doing  so.  "That's  a  genial 
thing  to  say  to  a  fellow  who  has  come  out  on  purpose 
to  meet  you ! " 

Nothing  could  have  been  finer,  on  this,  than  Way- 
marsh's  sombre  glow.  "Have  you  come  out  on 
purpose  ?" 

"Well  — very  largely." 

"  I  thought  from  the  way  you  wrote  there  was  some 
thing  back  of  it." 

Strether  hesitated.  "  Back  of  my  desire  to  be  with 
you?" 

"  Back  of  your  prostration." 

Strether,  with  a  smile  made  more  dim  by  a  certain 
consciousness,  shook  his  head.  "There  are  all  the 
causes  of  it!" 

"And  no  particular  cause  that  seemed  most  to 
drive  you  ? " 

Our  friend  could  at  last  conscientiously  answer. 
"Yes.  One.  There  is  a  matter  that  has  had  much 
to  do  with  my  coming  out." 

Waymarsh  waited  a  little.  "Too  private  to  men 
tion?" 

"No,  not  too  private  —  for  you.  Only  rather  com 
plicated." 

"Well,"  said  Waymarsh,  who  had  waited  again, 
30 


BOOK  FIRST 

"  I  may  lose  my  mind  over  here,  but  I  don't  know  as 
I've  done  so  yet." 

"Oh  you  shall  have  the  whole  thing.  But  not  to 
night." 

Waymarsh  seemed  to  sit  stiffer  and  to  hold  his 
elbows  tighter.  "Why  not  —  if  I  can't  sleep  ?" 

"Because,  my  dear  man,  I  can!" 

"  Then  where 's  your  prostration  ? " 

"  Just  in  that  —  that  I  can  put  in  eight  hours." 
And  Strether  brought  it  out  that  if  Waymarsh  did  n't 
"gain"  it  was  because  he  did  n't  go  to  bed :  the  result 
of  which  was,  in  its  order,  that,  to  do  the  latter 
justice,  he  permitted  his  friend  to  insist  on  his  really 
getting  settled.  Strether,  with  a  kind  coercive  hand 
for  it,  assisted  him  to  this  consummation,  and  again 
found  his  own  part  in  their  relation  auspiciously  en 
larged  by  the  smaller  touches  of  lowering  the  lamp 
and  seeing  to  a  sufficiency  of  blanket.  It  somehow 
ministered  for  him  to  indulgence  to  feel  Waymarsh, 
who  looked  unnaturally  big  and  black  in  bed,  as 
much  tucked  in  as  a  patient  in  a  hospital  and,  with  his 
covering  up  to  his  chin,  as  much  simplified  by  it. 
He  hovered  in  vague  pity,  to  be  brief,  while  his  com 
panion  challenged  him  out  of  the  bedclothes.  "Is  she 
really  after  you  ?  Is  that  what 's  behind  ? " 

Strether  felt  an  uneasiness  at  the  direction  taken 
by  his  companion's  insight,  but  he  played  a  little  at 
uncertainty.  "  Behind  my  coming  out  ? " 

"  Behind  your  prostration  or  whatever.  It 's  gener 
ally  felt,  you  know,  that  she  follows  you  up  pretty 
close." 

Strether's  candour  was  never  very  far  off.    "Oh 

31 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

it  has  occurred  to  you  that  I'm  literally  running 
away  from  Mrs.  Newsome  ? " 

"Well,  I  have  n't  known  but  what  you  are.  You're 
a  very  attractive  man,  Strether.  You've  seen  for 
yourself,"  said  Waymarsh,  "what  that  lady  down 
stairs  makes  of  it.  Unless  indeed,"  he  rambled  on 
with  an  effect  between  the  ironic  and  the  anxious, 
"it's  you  who  are  after  her.  Is  Mrs.  Newsome  over 
here  ? "  He  spoke  as  with  a  droll  dread  of  her. 

It  made  his  friend  —  though  rather  dimly  —  smile. 
"  Dear  no ;  she 's  safe,  thank  goodness  —  as  I  think 
I  more  and  more  feel  —  at  home.  She  thought  of 
coming,  but  she  gave  it  up.  I've  come  in  a  manner 
instead  of  her;  and  come  to  that  extent  —  for  you  're 
right  in  your  inference  —  on  her  business.  So  you  see 
there  is  plenty  of  connexion." 

Waymarsh  continued  to  see  at  least  all  there  was. 
"Involving  accordingly  the  particular  one  I've  re 
ferred  to  ? " 

Strether  took  another  turn  about  the  room,  giving 
a  twitch  to  his  companion's  blanket  and  finally  gain 
ing  the  door.  His  feeling  was  that  of  a  nurse  who  had 
earned  personal  rest  by  having  made  everything 
straight.  "  Involving  more  things  than  I  can  think  of 
breaking  ground  on  now.  But  don't  be  afraid  —  you 
shall  have  them  from  me :  you  '11  probably  find  your 
self  having  quite  as  much  of  them  as  you  can  do  with. 
I  shall  —  if  we  keep  together  —  very  much  depend 
on  your  impression  of  some  of  them." 

Waymarsh's  acknowledgement  of  this  tribute  was 
characteristically  indirect.  "You  mean  to  say  you 
don't  believe  we  will  keep  together  ? " 

32 


BOOK  FIRST 

"I  only  glance  at  the  danger,"  Strether  paternally 
said,  "  because  when  I  hear  you  wail  to  go  back  I  seem 
to  see  you  open  up  such  possibilities  of  folly." 

Waymarsh  took  it  —  silent  a  little  —  like  a  large 
snubbed  child.  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  me  ? " 

It  was  the  very  question  Strether  himself  had  put 
to  Miss  Gostrey,  and  he  wondered  if  he  had  sounded 
like  that.  But  he  at  least  could  be  more  definite. 
"I'm  going  to  take  you  right  down  to  London." 

"Oh  I  've  been  down  to  London !"  Waymarsh  more 
softly  moaned.  "I've  no  use,  Strether,  for  anything 
down  there." 

"Well,"  said  Strether,  good-humouredly,  "I  guess 
you've  some  use  for  me" 

"So  I've  got  to  go?" 

"Oh  you've  got  to  go  further  yet." 

"Well,"  Waymarsh  sighed,  "do  your  damnedest! 
Only  you  will  tell  me  before  you  lead  me  on  all  the 
way  —  ?" 

Our  friend  had  again  so  lost  himself,  both  for 
amusement  and  for  contrition,  in  the  wonder  of 
whether  he  had  made,  in  his  own  challenge  that  after 
noon,  such  another  figure,  that  he  for  an  instant 
missed  the  thread.  "Tell  you  —  ?" 

"  Why  what  you  've  got  on  hand." 

Strether  hesitated.  "Why  it's  such  a  matter  as 
that  even  if  I  positively  wanted  I  should  n't  be  able  to 
keep  it  from  you." 

Waymarsh  gloomily  gazed.  "What  does  that  mean 
then  but  that  your  trip  is  just  for  her  ?" 

"For  Mrs.  Newsome  ?  Oh  it  certainly  is,  as  I  say. 
Very  much." 

33 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"Then  why  do  you  also  say  it's  for  me?" 

Strether,  in  impatience,  violently  played  with  his 
latch.  "  It 's  simple  enough.  It 's  for  both  of  you." 

Waymarsh  at  last  turned  over  with  a  groan.  "Well, 
/  won't  marry  you ! " 

"Neither,  when  it  comes  to  that — !"  But  the 
visitor  had  already  laughed  and  escaped. 


Ill 


HE  had  told  Miss  Gostrey  he  should  probably  take, 
for  departure  with  Waymarsh,  some  afternoon  train, 
and  it  thereupon  in  the  morning  appeared  that  this 
lady  had  made  her  own  plan  for  an  earlier  one.  She 
had  breakfasted  when  Strether  came  into  the  coffee- 
room;  but,  Waymarsh  not  having  yet  emerged,  he 
was  in  time  to  recall  her  to  the  terms  of  their  under 
standing  and  to  pronounce  her  discretion  overdone. 
She  was  surely  not  to  break  away  at  the  very  moment 
she  had  created  a  want.  He  had  met  her  as  she  rose 
from  her  little  table  in  a  window,  where,  with  the 
morning  papers  beside  her,  she  reminded  him,  as 
he  let  her  know,  of  Major  Pendennis  breakfasting  at 
his  club  —  a  compliment  of  which  she  professed  a 
deep  appreciation ;  and  he  detained  her  as  pleadingly 
as  if  he  had  already  —  and  notably  under  pressure  of 
the  visions  of  the  night  —  learned  to  be  unable  to  do 
without  her.  She  must  teach  him  at  all  events,  before 
she  went,  to  order  breakfast  as  breakfast  was  ordered 
in  Europe,  and  she  must  especially  sustain  him  in  the 
problem  of  ordering  for  Waymarsh.  The  latter  had 
laid  upon  his  friend,  by  desperate  sounds  through  the 
door  of  his  room,  dreadful  divined  responsibilities  in 
respect  to  beefsteak  and  oranges  —  responsibilities 
which  Miss  Gostrey  took  over  with  an  alertness  of 
action  that  matched  her  quick  intelligence.  She  had 
before  this  weaned  the  expatriated  from  traditions 

35 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

compared  with  which  the  matutinal  beefsteak  was  but 
the  creature  of  an  hour,  and  it  was  not  for  her,  with 
some  of  her  memories,  to  falter  in  the  path ;  though  she 
freely  enough  declared,  on  reflexion,  that  there  was 
always  in  such  cases  a  choice  of  opposed  policies. 
"There  are  times  when  to  give  them  their  head,  you 
know—!" 

They  had  gone  to  wait  together  in  the  garden  for 
the  dressing  of  the  meal,  and  Strether  found  her  more 
suggestive  than  ever.  "Well,  what  ?" 

"Is  to  bring  about  for  them  such  a  complexity  of 
relations  —  unless  indeed  we  call  it  a  simplicity !  — 
that  the  situation  has  to  wind  itself  up.  They  want  to 
go  back." 

"And  you  want  them  to  go!"  Strether  gaily  con 
cluded. 

"  I  always  want  them  to  go,  and  I  send  them  as  fast 
as  I  can." 

"Oh  I  know  —  you  take  them  to  Liverpool." 

"Any  port  will  serve  in  a  storm.  I'm  —  with  all 
my  other  functions  —  an  agent  for  repatriation.  I 
want  to  re-people  our  stricken  country.  What  will 
become  of  it  else  ?  I  want  to  discourage  others." 

The  ordered  English  garden,  in  the  freshness  of 
the  day,  was  delightful  to  Strether,  who  liked  the 
sound,  under  his  feet,  of  the  tight  fine  gravel,  packed 
with  the  chronic  damp,  and  who  had  the  idlest  eye 
for  the  deep  smoothness  of  turf  and  the  clean  curves 
of  paths.  "  Other  people  ? " 

"Other  countries.  Other  people  —  yes.  I  want 
to  encourage  our  own." 

Strether  wondered.   "Not  to  come  ?  Why  then  do 

36 


BOOK  FIRST 

you  'meet '  them  ?  —  since  it  does  n't  appear  to  be 
to  stop  them  ? " 

"  Oh  that  they  should  n't  come  is  as  yet  too  much  to 
ask.  What  I  attend  to  is  that  they  come  quickly  and 
return  still  more  so.  I  meet  them  to  help  it  to  be  over 
as  soon  as  possible,  and  though  I  don't  stop  them  I  've 
my  way  of  putting  them  through.  That's  my  little 
system ;  and,  if  you  want  to  know,"  said  Maria  Gos- 
trey,  "it's  my  real  secret,  my  innermost  mission  and 
use.  I  only  seem,  you  see,  to  beguile  and  approve; 
but  I  've  thought  it  all  out  and  I  'm  working  all  the 
while  underground.  I  can't  perhaps  quite  give  you 
my  formula,  but  I  think  that  practically  I  succeed. 
I  send  you  back  spent.  So  you  stay  back.  Passed 
through  my  hands — " 

"  We  don't  turn  up  again  ? "  The  further  she  went 
the  further  he  always  saw  himself  able  to  follow.  "  I 
don't  want  your  formula  —  I  feel  quite  enough,  as  I 
hinted  yesterday,  your  abysses.  Spent!"  he  echoed. 
"  If  that 's  how  you  're  arranging  so  subtly  to  send  me 
I  thank  you  for  the  warning." 

For  a  minute,  amid  the  pleasantness  —  poetry  in 
tariffed  items,  but  all  the  more,  for  guests  already 
convicted,  a  challenge  to  consumption  —  they  smiled 
at  each  other  in  confirmed  fellowship.  "Do  you  call 
it  subtly  ?  It 's  a  plain  poor  tale.  Besides,  you  're  a 
special  case." 

"  Oh  special  cases  —  that 's  weak ! "  She  was  weak 
enough,  further  still,  to  defer  her  journey  and  agree 
to  accompany  the  gentlemen  on  their  own,  might  a 
separate  carriage  mark  her  independence;  though  it 
was  in  spite  of  this  to  befall  after  luncheon  that  she 

37 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

went  off  alone  and  that,  with  a  tryst  taken  for  a  day  of 
her  company  in  London,  they  lingered  another  night. 
She  had,  during  the  morning  —  spent  in  a  way  that 
he  was  to  remember  later  on  as  the  very  climax  of  his 
foretaste,  as  warm  with  presentiments,  with  what 
he  would  have  called  collapses  —  had  all  sorts  of 
things  out  with  Strether;  and  among  them  the  fact 
that  though  there  was  never  a  moment  of  her  life 
when  she  wasn't  "due"  somewhere,  there  was  yet 
scarce  a  perfidy  to  others  of  which  she  was  n't  capable 
for  his  sake.  She  explained  moreover  that  wherever 
she  happened  to  be  she  found  a  dropped  thread  to 
pick  up,  a  ragged  edge  to  repair,  some  familiar  appe 
tite  in  ambush,  jumping  out  as  she  approached,  yet 
appeasable  with  a  temporary  biscuit.  It  became,  on 
her  taking  the  risk  of  the  deviation  imposed  on  him 
by  her  insidious  arrangement  of  his  morning  meal,  a 
point  of  honour  for  her  not  to  fail  with  Waymarsh  of 
the  larger  success  too;  and  her  subsequent  boast  to 
Strether  was  that  she  had  made  their  friend  fare  — 
and  quite  without  his  knowing  what  was  the  matter 
—  as  Major  Pendennis  would  have  fared  at  the  Me 
gatherium.  She  had  made  him  breakfast  like  a  gentle 
man,  and  it  was  nothing,  she  forcibly  asserted,  to 
what  she  would  yet  make  him  do.  She  made  him  par 
ticipate  in  the  slow  reiterated  ramble  with  which,  for 
Strether,  the  new  day  amply  filled  itself;  and  it  was 
by  her  art  that  he  somehow  had  the  air,  on  the  ram 
parts  and  in  the  Rows,  of  carrying  a  point  of  his  own. 
The  three  strolled  and  stared  and  gossiped,  or  at 
least  the  two  did;  the  case  really  yielding  for  their 
comrade,  if  analysed,  but  the  element  of  stricken 

38 


BOOK  FIRST 

silence.  This  element  indeed  affected  Strether  as 
charged  with  audible  rumblings,  but  he  was  conscious 
of  the  care  of  taking  it  explicitly  as  a  sign  of  pleasant 
peace.  He  would  n't  appeal  too  much,  for  that  pro 
voked  stiffness ;  yet  he  would  n't  be  too  freely  tacit, 
for  that  suggested  giving  up.  Waymarsh  himself  ad 
hered  to  an  ambiguous  dumbness  that  might  have 
represented  either  the  growth  of  a  perception  or  the 
despair  of  one;  and  at  times  and  in  places  —  where  the 
low-browed  galleries  were  darkest,  the  opposite  gables 
queerest,  the  solicitations  of  every  kind  densest  — 
the  others  caught  him  fixing  hard  some  object  of 
minor  interest,  fixing  even  at  moments  nothing  dis 
cernible,  as  if  he  were  indulging  it  with  a  truce.  When 
he  met  Strether's  eye  on  such  occasions  he  looked 
guilty  and  furtive,  fell  the  next  minute  into  some  atti 
tude  of  retractation.  Our  friend  could  n't  show  him  the 
right  things  for  fear  of  provoking  some  total  renounce 
ment,  and  was  tempted  even  to  show  him  the  wrong 
in  order  to  make  him  differ  with  triumph.  There  were 
moments  when  he  himself  felt  shy  of  professing  the 
full  sweetness  of  the  taste  of  leisure,  and  there  were 
others  when  he  found  himself  feeling  as  if  his  pass 
ages  of  interchange  with  the  lady  at  his  side  might 
fall  upon  the  third  member  of  their  party  very  much 
as  Mr.  Burchell,  at  Dr.  Primrose's  fireside,  was  influ 
enced  by  the  high  flights  of  the  visitors  from  London. 
The  smallest  things  so  arrested  and  amused  him  that 
he  repeatedly  almost  apologised  —  brought  up  afresh 
in  explanation  his  plea  of  a  previous  grind.  He  was 
aware  at  the  same  time  that  his  grind  had  been  as 
nothing  to  Waymarsh's,  and  he  repeatedly  confessed 

39 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

that,  to  cover  his  frivolity,  he  was  doing  his  best  for 
his  previous  virtue.  Do  what  he  might,  in  any  case, 
his  previous  virtue  was  still  there,  and  it  seemed  fairly 
to  stare  at  him  out  of  the  windows  of  shops  that  were 
not  as  the  shops  of  Woollett,  fairly  to  make  him  want 
things  that  he  should  n't  know  what  to  do  with.  It 
was  by  the  oddest,  the  least  admissible  of  laws  de 
moralising  him  now;  and  the  way  it  boldly  took  was 
to  make  him  want  more  wants.  These  first  walks  in 
Europe  were  in  fact  a  kind  of  finely  lurid  intimation  of 
what  one  might  find  at  the  end  of  that  process.  Had 
he  come  back  after  long  years,  in  something  already 
so  like  the  evening  of  life,  only  to  be  exposed  to  it  ? 
It  was  at  all  events  over  the  shop-windows  that  he 
made,  with  Waymarsh,  most  free;  though  it  would 
have  been  easier  had  not  the  latter  most  sensibly 
yielded  to  the  appeal  of  the  merely  useful  trades.  He 
pierced  with  his  sombre  detachment  the  plate-glass 
of  ironmongers  and  saddlers,  while  Strether  flaunted 
an  affinity  with  the  dealers  in  stamped  letter-paper 
and  in  smart  neckties.  Strether  was  in  fact  recur 
rently  shameless  in  the  presence  of  the  tailors,  though 
it  was  just  over  the  heads  of  the  tailors  that  his  coun 
tryman  most  loftily  looked.  This  gave  Miss  Gostrey 
a  grasped  opportunity  to  back  up  Waymarsh  at  his 
expense.  The  weary  lawyer  —  it  was  unmistakeable 
—  had  a  conception  of  dress;  but  that,  in  view  of 
some  of  the  features  of  the  effect  produced,  was  just 
what  made  the  danger  of  insistence  on  it.  Strether 
wondered  if  he  by  this  time  thought  Miss  Gostrey 
less  fashionable  or  Lambert  Strether  more  so ;  and  it 
appeared  probable  that  most  of  the  remarks  ex- 

40 


BOOK  FIRST 

changed  between  this  latter  pair  about  passers,  fig 
ures,  faces,  personal  types,  exemplified  in  their  degree 
the  disposition  to  talk  as  "society"  talked. 

Was  what  was  happening  to  himself  then,  was  what 
already  had  happened,  really  that  a  woman  of  fashion 
was  floating  him  into  society  and  that  an  old  friend 
deserted  on  the  brink  was  watching  the  force  of  the 
current  ?  When  the  woman  of  fashion  permitted 
Strether  —  as  she  permitted  him  at  the  most  —  the 
purchase  of  a  pair  of  gloves,  the  terms  she  made  about 
it,  the  prohibition  of  neckties  and  other  items  till  she 
should  be  able  to  guide  him  through  the  Burlington 
Arcade,  were  such  as  to  fall  upon  a  sensitive  ear  as  a 
challenge  to  just  imputations.  Miss  Gostrey  was  such 
a  woman  of  fashion  as  could  make  without  a  symp 
tom  of  vulgar  blinking  an  appointment  for  the  Bur 
lington  Arcade.  Mere  discriminations  about  a  pair  of 
gloves  could  thus  at  any  rate  represent  —  always  for 
such  sensitive  ears  as  were  in  question  —  possibil 
ities  of  something  that  Strether  could  make  a  mark 
against  only  as  the  peril  of  apparent  wantonness.  He 
had  quite  the  consciousness  of  his  new  friend,  for 
their  companion,  that  he  might  have  had  of  a  Jesuit 
in  petticoats,  a  representative  of  the  recruiting  inter 
ests  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  Catholic  Church, 
for  Waymarsh  —  that  was  to  say  the  enemy,  the 
monster  of  bulging  eyes  and  far-reaching  quivering 
groping  tentacles  —  was  exactly  society,  exactly  the 
multiplication  of  shibboleths,  exactly  the  discrimina 
tion  of  types  and  tones,  exactly  the  wicked  old  Rows 
of  Chester,  rank  with  feudalism;  exactly  in  short 
Europe. 

41 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

There  was  light  for  observation,  however,  in  an 
incident  that  occurred  just  before  they  turned  back  to 
luncheon.  Waymarsh  had  been  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  exceptionally  mute  and  distant,  and  something, 
or  other  —  Strether  was  never  to  make  out  exactly 
what  —  proved,  as  it  were,  too  much  for  him  after  his 
comrades  had  stood  for  three  minutes  taking  in,  while 
they  leaned  on  an  old  balustrade  that  guarded  the 
edge  of  the  Row,  a  particularly  crooked  and  huddled 
street-view.  "He  thinks  us  sophisticated,  he  thinks 
us  worldly,  he  thinks  us  wicked,  he  thinks  us  all  sorts 
of  queer  things,"  Strether  reflected;  for  wondrous 
were  the  vague  quantities  our  friend  had  within  a 
couple  of  short  days  acquired  the  habit  of  conven 
iently  and  conclusively  lumping  together.  There 
seemed  moreover  a  direct  connexion  between  some 
such  inference  and  a  sudden  grim  dash  taken  by  Way- 
marsh  to  the  opposite  side.  This  movement  was 
startlingly  sudden,  and  his  companions  at  first  sup 
posed  him  to  have  espied,  to  be  pursuing,  the  glimpse 
of  an  acquaintance.  They  next  made  out,  however, 
that  an  open  door  had  instantly  received  him,  and 
they  then  recognised  him  as  engulfed  in  the  establish 
ment  of  a  jeweller,  behind  whose  glittering  front  he 
was  lost  to  view.  The  act  had  somehow  the  note  of 
a  demonstration,  and  it  left  each  of  the  others  to 
show  a  face  almost  of  fear.  But  Miss  Gostrey  broke 
into  a  laugh.  "What's  the  matter  with  him  ?" 

"Well,"  said  Strether,  "he  can't  stand  it." 

"  But  can't  stand  what  ? " 

"Anything.   Europe." 

"Then  how  will  that  jeweller  help  him?" 
42 


BOOK  FIRST 

Strether  seemed  to  make  it  out,  from  their  position, 
between  the  interstices  of  arrayed  watches,  of  close- 
hung  dangling  gewgaws.  "You'll  see." 

"Ah  that's  just  what  —  if  he  buys  anything  — 
I  'm  afraid  of:  that  I  shall  see  something  rather  dread 
ful." 

Strether  studied  the  finer  appearances.  "He  may 
buy  everything." 

"Then  don't  you  think  we  ought  to  follow  him  ?" 

"Not  for  worlds.  Besides  we  can't.  We're  para 
lysed.  We  exchange  a  long  scared  look,  we  publicly 
tremble.  The  thing  is,  you  see,  we  *  realise.'  He  has 
struck  for  freedom." 

She  wondered  but  she  laughed.  "Ah  what  a  price 
to  pay !  And  I  was  preparing  some  for  him  so  cheap." 

"No,  no,"  Strether  went  on,  frankly  amused  now; 
"don't  call  it  that :  the  kind  of  freedom  you  deal  in  is 
dear."  Then  as  to  justify  himself:  "Am  I  not  in  my 
way  trying  it  ?  It 's  this." 

"Being  here,  you  mean,  with  me?" 

"Yes,  and  talking  to  you  as  I  do.  I  've  known  you  a 
few  hours,  and  I  've  known  him  all  my  life;  so  that  if 
the  ease  I  thus  take  with  you  about  him  is  n't  magni 
ficent"  —  and  the  thought  of  it  held  him  a  moment 
—  "why  it's  rather  base." 

"It's  magnificent!"  said  Miss  Gostrey  to  make  an 
end  of  it.  "And  you  should  hear,"  she  added,  "the 
ease  /  take  —  and  I  above  all  intend  to  take  —  with 
Mr.  Waymarsh." 

Strether  thought.  "About  me?  Ah  that's  no  equi 
valent.  The  equivalent  would  be  Waymarsh's  himself 
serving  me  up — his  remorseless  analysis  of  me.  And 

43 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

he'll  never  do  that"  —  he  was  sadly  clear.  "He'll 
never  remorselessly  analyse  me."  He  quite  held  her 
with  the  authority  of  this.  "  He  '11  never  say  a  word  to 
you  about  me." 

She  took  it  in;  she  did  it  justice;  yet  after  an  instant 
her  reason,  her  restless  irony,  disposed  of  it.  "Of 
course  he  won't.  For  what  do  you  take  people,  that 
they're  able  to  say  words  about  anything,  able  re 
morselessly  to  analyse  ?  There  are  not  many  like  you 
and  me.  It  will  be  only  because  he 's  too  stupid." 

It  stirred  in  her  friend  a  sceptical  echo  which  was 
at  the  same  time  the  protest  of  the  faith  of  years. 
"Waymarsh  stupid?" 

"Compared  with  you." 

Strether  had  still  his  eyes  on  the  jeweller's  front,  and 
he  waited  a  moment  to  answer.  "  He 's  a  success  of  a 
kind  that  I  have  n't  approached." 

"Do  you  mean  he  has  made  money?" 

"  He  makes  it  —  to  my  belief.  And  I,"  said  Strether, 
"though  with  a  back  quite  as  bent,  have  never  made 
anything.  I'm  a  perfectly  equipped  failure." 

He  feared  an  instant  she'd  ask  him  if  he  meant  he 
was  poor;  and  he  was  glad  she  did  n't,  for  he  really 
did  n't  know  to  what  the  truth  on  this  unpleasant 
point  might  n't  have  prompted  her.  She  only,  how 
ever,  confirmed  his  assertion.  "Thank  goodness 
you  're  a  failure  —  it 's  why  I  so  distinguish  you ! 
Anything  else  to-day  is  too  hideous.  Look  about  you 
—  look  at  the  successes.  Would  you  be  one,  on  your 
honour  ?  Look,  moreover,"  she  continued,  "  at  me." 

For  a  little  accordingly  their  eyes  met.  "I  see," 
Strether  returned.  "You  too  are  out  of  it." 

44 


BOOK  FIRST 

"The  superiority  you  discern  in  me,"  she  con 
curred,  "  announces  my  futility.  If  you  knew,"  she 
sighed,  "  the  dreams  of  my  youth !  But  our  realities 
are  what  has  brought  us  together.  We're  beaten 
brothers  in  arms." 

He  smiled  at  her  kindly  enough,  but  he  shook  his 
head.  "  It  does  n't  alter  the  fact  that  you  're  expens 
ive.  You  've  cost  me  already  — ! " 

But  he  had  hung  fire.   "Cost  you  what  ?" 

"Well,  my  past  —  in  one  great  lump.  But  no  mat 
ter,"  he  laughed :  "  I  '11  pay  with  my  last  penny." 

Her  attention  had  unfortunately  now  been  engaged 
by  their  comrade's  return,  for  Waymarsh  met  their 
view  as  he  came  out  of  his  shop.  "I  hope  he  has  n't 
paid,"  she  said,  "with  his  last;  though  I'm  convinced 
he  has  been  splendid,  and  has  been  so  for  you." 

"Ah  no  —  not  that!" 

"Then  for  me?" 

"Quite  as  little."  Waymarsh  was  by  this  time  near 
enough  to  show  signs  his  friend  could  read,  though  he 
seemed  to  look  almost  carefully  at  nothing  in  par 
ticular. 

"Then  for  himself?" 

"For  nobody.   For  nothing.   For  freedom." 

"But  what  has  freedom  to  do  with  it?" 

Strether's  answer  was  indirect.  "To  be  as  good  as 
you  and  me.  But  different." 

She  had  had  time  to  take  in  their  companion's  face; 
and  with  it,  as  such  things  were  easy  for  her,  she  took 
in  all.  "  Different  —  yes.  But  better ! " 

If  Waymarsh  was  sombre  he  was  also  indeed  almost 
sublime.  He  told  them  nothing,  left  his  absence  unex- 

45 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

plained,  and  though  they  were  convinced  he  had 
made  some  extraordinary  purchase  they  were  never 
to  learn  its  nature.  He  only  glowered  grandly  at  the 
tops  of  the  old  gables.  "It's  the  sacred  rage," 
Strether  had  had  further  time  to  say;  and  this  sacred 
rage  was  to  become  between  them,  for  convenient 
comprehension,  the  description  of  oneof  his  periodical 
necessities.  It  was  Strether  who  eventually  contended 
that  it  did  make  him  better  than  they.  But  by  that 
time  Miss  Gostrey  was  convinced  that  she  did  n': 
want  to  be  better  than  Strether. 


BOOK   SECOND 


THOSE  occasions  on  which  Strether  was,  in  association 
with  the  exile  from  Milrose,  to  see  the  sacred  rage 
glimmer  through  would  doubtless  have  their  due  peri 
odicity;  but  our  friend  had  meanwhile  to  find  names 
for  many  other  matters.  On  no  evening  of  his  life  per 
haps,  as  he  reflected,  had  he  had  to  supply  so  many 
as  on  the  third  of  his  short  stay  in  London ;  an  evening 
spent  by  Miss  Gostrey's  side  at  one  of  the  theatres,  to 
which  he  had  found  himself  transported,  without  his 
own  hand  raised,  on  the  mere  expression  of  a  con 
scientious  wonder.  She  knew  her  theatre,  she  knew 
her  play,  as  she  had  triumphantly  known,  three  days 
running,  everything  else,  and  the  moment  filled  to  the 
brim,  for  her  companion,  that  apprehension  of  the 
interesting  which,  whether  or  no  the  interesting  hap 
pened  to  filter  through  his  guide,  strained  now  to  its 
limits  his  brief  opportunity.  Waymarsh  had  n't  come 
with  them;  he  had  seen  plays  enough, he  signified, be 
fore  Strether  had  joined  him — an  affirmation  that  had 
its  full  force  when  his  friend  ascertained  by  questions 
that  he  had  seen  two  and  a  circus.  Questions  as  to 
what  he  had  seen  had  on  him  indeed  an  effect  only  less 
favourable  than  questions  as  to  what  he  had  n't.  He 
liked  the  former  to  be  discriminated ;  but  how  could  it 
be  done,  Strether  asked  of  their  constant  counsellor, 
without  discriminating  the  latter  ? 

49 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

/ 

Miss  Gostrey  had  dined  with  him  at  his  hotel,  face 
to  face  over  a  small  table  on  which  the  lighted  candles 
had  rose-coloured  shades;  and  the  rose-coloured 
shades  and  the  small  table  and  the  soft  fragrance  of 
the  lady  —  had  anything  to  his  mere  sense  ever  been 
so  soft  ?  —  were  so  many  touches  in  he  scarce  knew 
what  positive  high  picture.  He  had  been  to  the  theatre, 
even  to  the  opera,  in  Boston,  with  Mrs.  Newsome, 
more  than  once  acting  as  her  only  escort;  but  there 
had  been  no  little  confronted  dinner,  no  pink  lights,  no 
whiff  of  vague  sweetness,  as  a  preliminary :  one  of  the 
results  of  which  was  that  at  present,  mildly  rueful, 
though  with  a  sharpish  accent,  he  actually  asked  him 
self  why  there  had  n't.  There  was  much  the  same 
difference  in  his  impression  of  the  noticed  state  of  his 
companion,  whose  dress  was  "cut  down,"  as  he  be 
lieved  the  term  to  be,  in  respect  to  shoulders  and 
bosom,  in  a  manner  quite  other  than  Mrs.  Newsome's, 
and  who  wore  round  her  throat  a  broad  red  velvet 
band  with  an  antique  jewel  —  he  was  rather  com 
placently  sure  it  was  antique  —  attached  to  it  in  front. 
Mrs.  Newsome's  dress  was  never  in  any  degree  "  cut 
down,"  and  she  never  wore  round  her  throat  a  broad 
red  velvet  band :  if  she  had,  moreover,  would  it  ever 
have  served  so  to  carry  on  and  complicate,  as  he  now 
almost  felt,  his  vision  ? 

It  would  have  been  absurd  of  him  to  trace  into  ram 
ifications  the  effect  of  the  ribbon  from  which  Miss 
Gostrey's  trinket  depended,  had  he  not  for  the  hour, 
at  the  best,  been  so  given  over  to  uncontrolled  per 
ceptions.  What  was  it  but  an  uncontrolled  perception 
that  his  friend's  velvet  band  somehow  added,  in  her 

50 


BOOK  SECOND 

appearance,  to  the  value  of  every  other  item  —  to  that 
of  her  smile  and  of  the  way  she  carried  her  head,  to 
that  of  her  complexion,  of  her  lips,  her  teeth,  her  eyes, 
her  hair  ?  What,  certainly,  had  a  man  conscious  of 
a  man's  work  in  the  world  to  do  with  red  velvet  bands  ? 
He  would  n't  for  anything  have  so  exposed  himself 
as  to  tell  Miss  Gostrey  how  much  he  liked  hers,  yet 
he  had  none  the  less  not  only  caught  himself  in  the 
act  —  frivolous,  no  doubt,  idiotic,  and  above  all  un 
expected — of  liking  it :  he  had  in  addition  taken  it  as  a 
'  starting-point  for  fresh  backward,  fresh  forward,  fresh 
lateral  flights.  The  manner  in  which  Mrs.  Newsome's 
throat  was  encircled  suddenly  represented  for  him, 
in  an  alien  order,  almost  as  many  things  as  the  man 
ner  in  which  Miss  Gostrey's  was.  Mrs.  Newsome 
wore,  at  operatic  hours,  a  black  silk  dress — very  hand 
some,  he  knew  it  was  "handsome"  —  and  an  orna 
ment  that  his  memory  was  able  further  to  identify 
as  a  ruche.  He  had  his  association  indeed  with  the 
ruche,  but  it  was  rather  imperfectly  romantic.  He 
had  once  said  to  the  wearer  —  and  it  was  as  "free"  a 
remark  as  he  had  ever  made  to  her  —  that  she  looked, 
with  her  ruff  and  other  matters,  like  Queen  Elizabeth ; 
and  it  had  after  this  in  truth  been  his  fancy  that, 
as  a  consequence  of  that  tenderness  and  an  accept 
ance  of  the  idea,  the  form  of  this  special  tribute  to  the 
"frill"  had  grown  slightly  more  marked.  The  con 
nexion,  as  he  sat  there  and  let  his  imagination  roam, 
was  to  strike  him  as  vaguely  pathetic ;  but  there  it  all 
was,  and  pathetic  was  doubtless  in  the  conditions  the 
best  thing  it  could  possibly  be.  It  had  assuredly  ex 
isted  at  any  rate;  for  it  seemed  now  to  come  over  him 

51 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

that  no  gentleman  of  his  age  at  Woollett  could  ever, 
to  a  lady  of  Mrs.  Newsome's,  which  was  not  much 
less  than  his,  have  embarked  on  such  a  simile. 

All  sorts  of  things  in  fact  now  seemed  to  come  over 
him,  comparatively  few  of  which  his  chronicler  can 
hope  for  space  to  mention.  It  came  over  him  for  in 
stance  that  Miss  Gostrey  looked  perhaps  like  Mary 
Stuart:  Lambert  Strether  had  a  candour  of  fancy 
which  could  rest  for  an  instant  gratified  in  such  an 
antithesis.  It  came  over  him  that  never  before  —  no, 
literally  never  —  had  a  lady  dined  with  him  at  a  pub 
lic  place  before  going  to  the  play.  The  publicity  of  the 
place  was  just,  in  the  matter,  for  Strether,  the  rare 
strange  thing;  it  affected  him  almost  as  the  achieve 
ment  of  privacy  might  have  affected  a  man  of  a  dif 
ferent  experience.  He  had  married,  in  the  far-away 
years,  so  young  as  to  have  missed  the  time  natural  in 
Boston  for  taking  girls  to  the  Museum;  and  it  was 
absolutely  true  of  him  that  —  even  after  the  close  of 
the  period  of  conscious  detachment  occupying  the 
centre  of  his  life,  the  grey  middle  desert  of  the  two 
deaths,  that  of  his  wife  and  that,  ten  years  later,  of  his 
boy  —  he  had  never  taken  any  one  anywhere.  It  came 
over  him  in  especial  —  though  the  monition  had,  as 
happened,  already  sounded,  fitfully  gleamed,  in  other 
forms  —  that  the  business  he  had  come  out  on  had  n't 
yet  been  so  brought  home  to  him  as  by  the  sight  of 
the  people  about  him.  She  gave  him  the  impression, 
his  friend,  at  first,  more  straight  than  he  got  it  for  him 
self —  gave  it  simply  by  saying  with  off-hand  illumin 
ation:  "Oh  yes,  they're  types!"  —  but  after  he  had 
taken  it  he  made  to  the  full  his  own  use  of  it;  both 

52 


BOOK  SECOND 

while  he  kept  silence  for  the  four  acts  and  while  he 
talked  in  the  intervals.  It  was  an  evening,  it  was  a 
world  of  types,  and  this  was  a  connexion  above  all 
in  which  the  figures  and  faces  in  the  stalls  were  inter 
changeable  with  those  on  the  stage. 

He  felt  as  if  the  play  itself  penetrated  him  with  the 
naked  elbow  of  his  neighbour,  a  great  stripped  hand 
some  red-haired  lady  who  conversed  with  a  gentleman 
on  her  other  side  in  stray  dissyllables  which  had  for 
his  ear,  in  the  oddest  way  in  the  world,  so  much  sound 
that  he  wondered  they  had  n't  more  sense;  and  he 
recognised  by  the  same  law,  beyond  the  footlights, 
what  he  was  pleased  to  take  for  the  very  flush  of  Eng 
lish  life.  He  had  distracted  drops  in  which  he  could  n't 
have  said  if  it  were  actors  or  auditors  who  were  most 
true,  and  the  upshot  of  which,  each  time,  was  the  con 
sciousness  of  new  contacts.  However  he  viewed  his 
job  it  was  "types"  he  should  have  to  tackle.  Those 
before  him  and  around  him  were  not  as  the  types  of 
Woollett,  where,  for  that  matter,  it  had  begun  to  seem 
to  him  that  there  must  only  have  been  the  male  and  the 
female.  These  made  two  exactly,  even  with  the  indi 
vidual  varieties.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  apart  from 
the  personal  and  the  sexual  range  —  which  might  be 
greater  or  less  —  a  series  of  strong  stamps  had  been 
applied,  as  it  were,  from  without;  stamps  that  his 
observation  played  with  as,  before  a  glass  case  on  a 
table,  it  might  have  passed  from  medal  to  medal  and 
from  copper  to  gold.  It  befell  that  in  the  drama  pre 
cisely  there  was  a  bad  woman  in  a  yellow  frock  who 
made  a  pleasant  weak  good-looking  young  man  in  per 
petual  evening  dress  do  the  most  dreadful  things. 

53 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Strether  felt  himself  on  the  whole  not  afraid  of  the 
yellow  frock,  but  he  was  vaguely  anxious  over  a  cer 
tain  kindness  into  which  he  found  himself  drifting 
for  its  victim.  He  had  n't  come  out,  he  reminded 
himself,  to  be  too  kind,  or  indeed  to  be  kind  at  all, 
to  Chadwick  Newsome.  Would  Chad  also  be  in  per 
petual  evening  dress  ?  He  somehow  rather  hoped  it 

—  it  seemed  so  to  add  to  this  young  man's  general 
amenability;  though  he  wondered  too  if,  to  fight  him 
with  his  own  weapons,  he  himself  (a  thought  almost 
startling)  would   have  likewise  to  be.    This  young 
man  furthermore  would  have  been  much  more  easy 
to  handle  —  at  least  for  him  —  than  appeared  prob 
able  in  respect  to  Chad. 

It  came  up  for  him  with  Miss  Gostrey  that  there 
were  things  of  which  she  would  really  perhaps  after 
all  have  heard ;  and  she  admitted  when  a  little  pressed 
that  she  was  never  quite  sure  of  what  she  heard  as 
distinguished  from  things  such  as,  on  occasions  like 
the  present,  she  only  extravagantly  guessed.  "I  seem 
with  this  freedom,  you  see,  to  have  guessed  Mr.  Chad. 
He's  a  young  man  on  whose  head  high  hopes  are 
placed  at  Woollett ;  a  young  man  a  wicked  woman  has 
got  hold  of  and  whom  his  family  over  there  have  sent 
you  out  to  rescue.  You've  accepted  the  mission  of 
separating  him  from  the  wicked  woman.  Are  you 
quite  sure  she 's  very  bad  for  him  ? " 

Something  in  his  manner  showed  it  as  quite  pulling 
him  up.  "  Of  course  we  are.  Would  n't  you  be  ? " 

"Oh  I  don't  know.   One  never  does  —  does  one? 

—  beforehand.    One  can  only  judge  on  the  facts. 
Yours  are  quite  new  to  me;  I  'm  really  not  in  the  least, 

54   i 


BOOK  SECOND 

as  you  see,  in  possession  of  them :  so  it  will  be  awfully 
interesting  to  have  them  from  you.  If  you  're  satis 
fied,  that's  all  that's  required.  I  mean  if  you're  sure" 
you  are  sure :  sure  it  won't  do." 

"That  he  should  lead  such  a  life?  Rather!" 

"Oh  but  I  don't  know,  you  see,  about  his  life; 
you've  not  told  me  about  his  life.  She  may  be 
charming  —  his  life ! " 

"  Charming  ? "  —  Strether  stared  before  him. 
"She's  base,  venal  —  out  of  the  streets." 

"I  see.   And  be  —  ?" 

"Chad,  wretched  boy?" 

"  Of  what  type  and  temper  is  he  ? "  she  went  on  as 
Strether  had  lapsed. 

"  Well  —  the  obstinate."  It  was  as  if  for  a  moment 
he  had  been  going  to  say  more  and  had  then  con 
trolled  himself. 

That  was  scarce  what  she  wished.  "Do  you  like 
him?" 

This  time  he  was  prompt.   "No.   How  can  I  ?" 

"Do  you  mean  because  of  your  being  so  saddled 
with  him  ? " 

"I'm  thinking  of  his  mother,"  said  Strether  after  a 
moment.  "He  has  darkened  her  admirable  life."  He 
spoke  with  austerity.  "He  has  worried  her  half  to 
death." 

"Oh  that's  of  course  odious."  She  had  a  pause  as 
if  for  renewed  emphasis  of  this  truth,  but  it  ended  on 
another  note.  "Is  her  life  very  admirable?" 

"  Extraordinarily." 

There  was  so  much  in  the  tone  that  Miss  Gostrey 
had  to  devote  another  pause  to  the  appreciation  of  it. 

55 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"And  has  he  only  her?  I  don't  mean  the  bad  woman 
in  Paris,"  she  quickly  added  —  "  for  I  assure  you  I 
should  n't  even  at  the  best  be  disposed  to  allow  him 
more  than  one.  But  has  he  only  his  mother  ? " 

"  He  has  also  a  sister,  older  than  himself  and  mar 
ried;  and  they're  both  remarkably  fine  women." 

"Very  handsome,  you  mean  ?" 

This  promptitude  —  almost,  as  he  might  have 
thought,  this  precipitation,  gave  him  a  brief  drop ;  but 
he  came  up  again.  "  Mrs.  Newsome,  I  think,  is  hand 
some,  though  she 's  not  of  course,  with  a  son  of  twenty- 
eight  and  a  daughter  of  thirty,  in  her  very  first  youth. 
She  married,  however,  extremely  young." 

"  And  is  wonderful,"  Miss  Gostrey  asked,  "  for  her 
age?" 

Strether  seemed  to  feel  with  a  certain  disquiet  the 
pressure  of  it.  "I  don't  say  she's  wonderful.  Or 
rather,"  he  went  on  the  next  moment,  "I  do  say  it. 
It 's  exactly  what  she  is  —  wonderful.  But  I  was  n't 
thinking  of  her  appearance,"  he  explained  —  "strik 
ing  as  that  doubtless  is.  I  was  thinking  —  well,  of 
many  other  things."  He  seemed  to  look  at  these  as  if 
to  mention  some  of  them ;  then  took,  pulling  himself 
up,  another  turn.  "About  Mrs.  Pocock  people  may 
differ." 

"  Is  that  the  daughter's  name  —  '  Pocock '  ? " 

"That's  the  daughter's  name,"  Strether  sturdily 
confessed. 

"And  people  may  differ,  you  mean,  about  her 
beauty  ? " 

"About  everything." 

"  But  you  admire  her  ? " 

56 


BOOK  SECOND 

He  gave  his  friend  a  glance  as  to  show  how  he  could 
bear  this.  "  I  'm  perhaps  a  little  afraid  of  her." 

"Oh,"  said  Miss  Gostrey,  "I  see  her  from  here! 
You  may  say  then  I  see  very  fast  and  very  far,  but 
I  Ve  already  shown  you  I  do.  The  young  man  and 
the  two  ladies,"  she  went  on,  "  are  at  any  rate  all  the 
family?" 

"Quite  all.  His  father  has  been  dead  ten  years,  and 
there 's  no  brother,  nor  any  other  sister.  They  'd  do," 
said  Strether,  "anything  in  the  world  for  him." 

"And  you'd  do  anything  in  the  world  for  them?" 

He  shifted  again;  she  had  made  it  perhaps  just  a 
shade  too  affirmative  for  his  nerves.  "Oh  I  don't 
know!" 

"You'd  do  at  any  rate  this,  and  the  'anything* 
they'd  do  is  represented  by  their  making  you  do  it." 

"Ah  they  couldn't  have  come  —  either  of  them. 
They  're  very  busy  people  and  Mrs.  Newsome  in  par 
ticular  has  a  large  full  life.  She's  moreover  highly 
nervous  —  and  not  at  all  strong." 

"You  mean  she's  an  American  invalid?" 

He  carefully  distinguished.  "There's  nothing  she 
likes  less  than  to  be  called  one,  but  she  would  consent 
to  be  one  of  those  things,  I  think,"  he  laughed,  "if  it 
were  the  only  way  to  be  the  other." 

"Consent  to  be  an  American  in  order  to  be  an 
invalid?" 

"No,"  said  Strether,  "the  other  way  round.  She's 
at  any  rate  delicate  sensitive  high-strung.  She  puts 
so  much  of  herself  into  everything — " 

Ah  Maria  knew  these  things!  "That  she  has  no 
thing  left  for  anything  else  ?  Of  course  she  has  n't. 

57 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

To  whom  do  you  say  it  ?  High-strung  ?  Don't  I  spend 
my  life,  for  them,  jamming  down  the  pedal  ?  I  see 
moreover  how  it  has  told  on  you." 

Strether  took  this  more  lightly.  "Oh  I  jam  down 
the  pedal  too!" 

"Well,"  she  lucidly  returned,  "we  must  from  this 
moment  bear  on  it  together  with  all  our  might."  And 
she  forged  ahead.  "  Have  they  money  ? ' 

But  it  was  as  if,  while  her  energetic  image  still  held 
him,  her  enquiry  fell  short.  "Mrs.  Newsome,"  he 
wished  further  to  explain,  "  has  n't  moreover  your 
courage  on  the  question  of  contact.  If  she  had  come 
it  would  have  been  to  see  the  person  herself." 

"The  woman  ?  Ah  but  that's  courage." 

"  No  —  it 's  exaltation,  which  is  a  very  different 
thing.  Courage,"  he,  however,  accommodatingly 
threw  out,  "is  what  you  have." 

She  shook  her  head.  "You  say  that  only  to  patch 
me  up  —  to  cover  the  nudity  of  my  want  of  exaltation. 
I  Ve  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  I  've  mere  battered 
indifference.  I  see  that  what  you  mean,"  Miss  Gos- 
trey  pursued,  "is  that  if  your  friend  had  come  she 
would  take  great  views,  and  the  great  views,  to  put  it 
simply,  would  be  too  much  for  her." 

Strether  looked  amused  at  her  notion  of  the  simple, 
but  he  adopted  her  formula.  "Everything's  too 
much  for  her." 

"Ah  then  such  a  service  as  this  of  yours  —  " 

"  Is  more  for  her  than  anything  else  ?  Yes  —  far 
more.  But  so  long  as  it  is  n't  too  much  for  me  — ! " 

"  Her  condition  does  n't  matter  ?  Surely  not ;  we 
leave  her  condition  out;  we  take  it,  that  is,  for  granted. 

58 


BOOK  SECOND 

I  see  it,  her  condition,  as  behind  and  beneath  you ; 
yet  at  the  same  time  I  see  it  as  bearing  you  up." 

"Oh  it  does  bear  me  up!"  Strether  laughed. 

"Well  then  as  yours  bears  me  nothing  more's 
needed."  With  which  she  put  again  her  question. 
"Has  Mrs.  Newsome  money?" 

This  time  he  heeded.  "  Oh  plenty.  That 's  the  root 
of  the  evil.  There 's  money,  to  very  large  amounts, 
in  the  concern.  Chad  has  had  the  free  use  of  a  great 
deal.  But  if  he'll  pull  himself  together  and  come 
home,  all  the  same,  he'll  find  his  account  in  it." 

She  had  listened  with  all  her  interest.  "And  I  hope 
to  goodness  you'll  find  yours!" 

"He'll  take  up  his  definite  material  reward,"  said 
Strether  without  acknowledgement  of  this.  "He's  at 
the  parting  of  the  ways.  He  can  come  into  the  business 
now  —  he  can't  come  later." 

"  Is  there  a  business  ? " 

"  Lord,  yes  —  a  big  brave  bouncing  business.  A 
roaring  trade." 

"A  great  shop?" 

"Yes  —  a  workshop;  a  great  production,  a  great 
industry.  The  concern 's  a  manufacture  —  and  a 
manufacture  that,  if  it 's  only  properly  looked  after, 
may  well  be  on  the  way  to  become  a  monopoly.  It 's 
a  little  thing  they  make  —  make  better,  it  appears, 
than  other  people  can,  or  than  other  people,  at  any  rate, 
do.  Mr.  Newsome,  being  a  man  of  ideas,  at  least  in 
that  particular  line,"  Strether  explained,  "put  them 
on  it  with  great  effect,  and  gave  the  place  altogether, 
in  his  time,  an  immense  lift." 

"It's  a  place  in  itself?" 

59 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"Well,  quite  a  number  of  buildings;  almost  a  little 
industrial  colony.  But  above  all  it's  a  thing.  The 
article  produced." 

"And  what  is  the  article  produced  ?" 

Strether  looked  about  him  as  in  slight  reluctance  to 
say;  then  the  curtain,  which  he  saw  about  to  rise, 
came  to  his  aid.  "I'll  tell  you  next  time."  But  when 
the  next  time  came  he  only  said  he  'd  tell  her  later  on 
—  after  they  should  have  left  the  theatre;  for  she  had 
immediately  reverted  to  their  topic,  and  even  for  him 
self  the  picture  of  the  stage  was  now  overlaid  with  an 
other  image.  His  postponements,  however,  made  her 
wonder  —  wonder  if  the  article  referred  to  were  any 
thing  bad.  And  she  explained  that  she  meant  im 
proper  or  ridiculous  or  wrong.  But  Strether,  so  far  as 
that  went,  could  satisfy  her.  "Unmentionable?  Oh 
no,  we  constantly  talk  of  it;  we  are  quite  familiar  and 
brazen  about  it.  Only,  as  a  small,  trivial,  rather 
ridiculous  object  of  the  commonest  domestic  use,  it's 
just  wanting  in  —  what  shall  I  say  ?  Well,  dignity,  or 
the  least  approach  to  distinction.  Right  here  therefore, 
with  everything  about  us  so  grand  — ! "  In  short  he 
shrank. 

"It's  a  false  note?" 

"Sadly.   It's  vulgar." 

"  But  surely  not  vulgarer  than  this."  Then  on  his 
wondering  as  she  herself  had  done :  "Than  everything 
about  us."  She  seemed  a  trifle  irritated.  "What  do 
you  take  this  for  ? " 

"  Why  for  —  comparatively  —  divine ! " 

"This  dreadful  London  theatre?  It's  impossible, 
if  you  really  want  to  know." 

60 


BOOK  SECOND 

"Oh  then,"  laughed  Strether,  "I  don't  really  want 
to  know!" 

It  made  between  them  a  pause,  which  she,  how 
ever,  still  fascinated  by  the  mystery  of  the  production 
at  Woollett,  presently  broke.  "  '  Rather  ridiculous '  ? 
Clothes-pins?  Saleratus  ?  Shoe-polish?" 

It  brought  him  round.  "No  —  you  don't  even 
'burn/  I  don't  think,  you  know,  you'll  guess  it." 

"How  then  can  I  judge  how  vulgar  it  is  ?" 

"You'll  judge  when  I  do  tell  you"  —  and  he  per 
suaded  her  to  patience.  But  it  may  even  now  frankly 
be  mentioned  that  he  in  the  sequel  never  was  to  tell  her. 
He  actually  never  did  so,  and  it  moreover  oddly  oc 
curred  that  by  the  law,  within  her,  of  the  incalculable, 
her  desire  for  the  information  dropped  and  her  atti 
tude  to  the  question  converted  itself  into  a  positive 
cultivation  of  ignorance.  In  ignorance  she  could 
humour  her  fancy,  and  that  proved  a  useful  freedom. 
She  could  treat  the  little  nameless  object  as  indeed 
unnameable  —  she  could  make  their  abstention  enor 
mously  definite.  There  might  indeed  have  been  for 
Strether  the  portent  of  this  in  what  she  next  said. 

"Is  it  perhaps  then  because  it's  so  bad  —  because 
your  industry,  as  you  call  it,  is  so  vulgar  —  that  Mr. 
Chad  won't  come  back  ?  Does  he  feel  the  taint  ?  Is 
he  staying  away  not  to  be  mixed  up  in  it  ? " 

"Oh,"  Strether  laughed,  "it  wouldn't  appear  — 
would  it  ?  —  that  he  feels  *  taints '!  He's  glad  enough 
of  the  money  from  it,  and  the  money 's  his  whole  basis. 
There 's  appreciation  in  that  —  I  mean  as  to  the  allow 
ance  his  mother  has  hitherto  made  him.  She  has  of 
course  the  resource  of  cutting  this  allowance  off;  but 

61 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

even  then  he  has  unfortunately,  and  on  no  small 
scale,  his  independent  supply  —  money  left  him  by  his 
grandfather,  her  own  father." 

"Would  n't  the  fact  you  mention  then,"  Miss  Gos- 
trey  asked,  "make  it  just  more  easy  for  him  to  be  par 
ticular  ?  Is  n't  he  conceivable  as  fastidious  about  the 
source  —  the  apparent  and  public  source  —  of  his 
income  ?" 

Strether  was  able  quite  good-humouredly  to  enter 
tain  the  proposition.  "The  source  of  his  grandfather's 
wealth  —  and  thereby  of  his  own  share  in  it  —  was 
not  particularly  noble." 

"And  what  source  was  it?" 

Strether  cast  about.  "  Well  —  practices." 

"  In  business  ?  Infamies  ?  He  was  an  old  swin 
dler?" 

"Oh,"  he  said  with  more  emphasis  than  spirit, 
"I  shan't  describe  him  nor  narrate  his  exploits." 

"Lord,  what  abysses!  And  the  late  Mr.  Newsome 
then?" 

"Well,  what  about  him?" 

"Was  he  like  the  grandfather?" 

"No  —  he  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  house.  And 
he  was  different." 

Miss  Gostrey  kept  it  up.   "Better?" 

Her  friend  for  a  moment  hung  fire.  "No." 

Her  comment  on  his  hesitation  was  scarce  the  less 
marked  for  being  mute.  "Thank  you.  Now  don't 
you  see,"  she  went  on,  "why  the  boy  does  n't  come 
home?  He's  drowning  his  shame." 

"His  shame?  What  shame?" 

"What  shame?    Comment  done?    The  shame." 
62 


BOOK  SECOND 

"But  where  and  when,"  Strether  asked,  "is  'the 
shame*  — where  is  any  shame  —  to-day  ?  The  men 
I  speak  of — they  did  as  everyone  does;  and  (besides 
being  ancient  history)  it  was  all  a  matter  of  apprecia 
tion." 

She  showed  how  she  understood.  "  Mrs.  Newsome 
has  appreciated  ? " 

"Ah  I  can't  speak  for  her!" 

"  In  the  midst  of  such  doings  —  and,  as  I  under 
stand  you,  profiting  by  them,  she  at  least  has  re 
mained  exquisite  ? " 

"Oh  I  can't  talk  of  her!"  Strether  said. 

"I  thought  she  was  just  what  you  could  talk  of. 
You  don't  trust  me,"  Miss  Gostrey  after  a  moment 
declared. 

It  had  its  effect.  "Well,  her  money  is  spent,  her 
life  conceived  and  carried  on  with  a  large  bene 
ficence — " 

"  That 's  a  kind  of  expiation  of  wrongs  ?  Gracious," 
she  added  before  he  could  speak,  "how  intensely  you 
make  me  see  her!" 

"If  you  see  her,"  Strether  dropped,  "it's  all  that's 
necessary." 

She  really  seemed  to  have  her.  "I  feel  that.  SheiV, 
in  spite  of  everything,  handsome." 

This  at  least  enlivened  him.  "  What  do  you  mean 
by  everything  ? " 

"Well,  I  mean  you"  With  which  she  had  one  of 
her  swift  changes  of  ground.  "You  say  the  concern 
needs  looking  after;  but  does  n't  Mrs.  Newsome  look 
after  it?" 

"So  far  as  possible.    She's  wonderfully  able,  but 

63 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

it's  not  her  affair,  and  her  life's  a  good  deal  over 
charged.  She  has  many,  many  things." 

"And  you  also?" 

"  Oh  yes  —  I  've  many  too,  if  you  will." 

"I  see.  But  what  I  mean  is,"  Miss  Gostrey 
amended,  "  do  you  also  look  after  the  business  ? " 

"Oh  no,  I  don't  touch  the  business." 

"  Only  everything  else  ? " 

"  Well,  yes  —  some  things." 

"As  for  instance  —  ?" 

Strether  obligingly  thought.    "Well,  the  Review." 

"The  Review? — you  have  a  Review?" 

"  Certainly.  Woollett  has  a  Review  —  which  Mrs. 
Newsome,  for  the  most  part,  magnificently  pays  for 
and  which  I,  not  at  all  magnificently,  edit.  My  name 's 
on  the  cover,"  Strether  pursued,  "and  I'm  really 
rather  disappointed  and  hurt  that  you  seem  never 
to  have  heard  of  it." 

She  neglected  for  a  moment  this  grievance.  "And 
what  kind  of  a  Review  is  it  ? " 

His  serenity  was  now  completely  restored.  "Well, 
it's  green." 

"  Do  you  mean  in  political  colour  as  they  say  here 
—  in  thought  ? " 

"No;  I  mean  the  cover's  green  —  of  the  most 
lovely  shade." 

"And  with  Mrs.  Newsome's  name  on  it  too  ?" 

He  waited  a  little.  "  Oh  as  for  that  you  must  judge 
if  she  peeps  out.  She's  behind  the  whole  thing;  but 
she's  of  a  delicacy  and  a  discretion  — !" 

Miss  Gostrey  took  it  all.  "  I  'm  sure.  She  would  be. 
I  don't  underrate  her.  She  must  be  rather  a  swell." 


BOOK  SECOND 

"Oh  yes,  she's  rather  a  swell!" 

"A  Woollett  swell  —  Ion!  I  like  the  idea  of  a 
Woollett  swell.  And  you  must  be  rather  one  too,  to  be 
so  mixed  up  with  her." 

"Ah  no,"  said  Strether,  "that's  not  the  way  it 
works." 

But  she  had  already  taken  him  up.  "The  way  it 
works  —  you  need  n't  tell  me !  —  is  of  course  that  you 
efface  yourself." 

"  With  my  name  on  the  cover  ? "  he  lucidly  objected. 

"Ah  but  you  don't  put  it  on  for  yourself." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  —  that's  exactly  what  I  do  put 
it  on  for.  It 's  exactly  the  thing  that  I  'm  reduced  to 
doing  for  myself.  It  seems  to  rescue  a  little,  you  see, 
from  the  wreck  of  hopes  and  ambitions,  the  refuse- 
heap  of  disappointments  and  failures,  my  one  pre 
sentable  little  scrap  of  an  identity." 

On  this  she  looked  at  him  as  to  say  many  things, 
but  what  she  at  last  simply  said  was :  "  She  likes  to  see 
it  there.  You  're  the  bigger  swell  of  the  two,"  she  im 
mediately  continued,  "  because  you  think  you  're  not 
one.  She  thinks  she  is  one.  However,"  Miss  Gostrey 
added,  "she  thinks  you're  one  too.  You're  at  all 
events  the  biggest  she  can  get  hold  of."  She  embroid 
ered,  she  abounded.  "I  don't  say  it  to  interfere  be 
tween  you,  but  on  the  day  she  gets  hold  of  a  bigger 
one — !"  Strether  had  thrown  back  his  head  as  in 
silent  mirth  over  something  that  struck  him  in  her 
audacity  or  felicity,  and  her  flight  meanwhile  was 
already  higher.  "Therefore  close  with  her — !" 

"Close  with  her  ?"  he  asked  as  she  seemed  to  hang 
poised. 

65 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"  Before  you  lose  your  chance." 

Their  eyes  met  over  it.  "What  do  you  mean  by 
closing  ? " 

"And  what  do  I  mean  by  your  chance  ?  I  '11  tell  you 
when  you  tell  me  all  the  things  you  don't.  Is  it  her 
greatest  fad  ? "  she  briskly  pursued. 

"The  Review?"  He  seemed  to  wonder  how  he 
could  best  describe  it.  This  resulted  however  but  in 
a  sketch.  "It's  her  tribute  to  the  ideal." 

"I  see.   You  go  in  for  tremendous  things." 

"We  go  in  for  the  unpopular  side  —  that  is  so  far 
as  we  dare." 

"And  how  far  do  you  dare?" 

"Well,  she  very  far.  I  much  less.  I  don't  begin  to 
have  her  faith.  She  provides,"  said  Strether,  "three 
fourths  of  that.  And  she  provides,  as  I  've  confided  to 
you,  all  the  money." 

It  evoked  somehow  a  vision  of  gold  that  held  for  a 
little  Miss  Gostrey's  eyes,  and  she  looked  as  if  she 
heard  the  bright  dollars  shovelled  in.  "I  hope  then 
you  make  a  good  thing — " 

"I  never  made  a  good  thing!"  he  at  once  returned. 

She  just  waited.  "  Don't  you  call  it  a  good  thing  to 
beloved?" 

"Oh  we 're  not  loved.  We 're  not  even  hated.  We're 
only  just  sweetly  ignored." 

She  had  another  pause.  "You  don't  trust  me ! "  she 
once  more  repeated. 

"  Don't  I  when  I  lift  the  last  veil  ?  —  tell  you  the 
very  secret  of  the  prison-house  ? " 

Again  she  met  his  eyes,  but  to  the  result  that  after 
an  instant  her  own  turned  away  with  impatience. 

66 


BOOK  SECOND 

"You  don't  sell?  Oh  I'm  glad  of  that!"  After  which 
however,  and  before  he  could  protest,  she  was  off 
again.  "She's  just  a  moral  swell." 

He  accepted  gaily  enough  the  definition.  "  Yes  —  I 
really  think  that  describes  her." 

But  it  had  for  his  friend  the  oddest  connexion. 
"How  does  she  do  her  hair  ?" 

He  laughed  out.   "  Beautifully ! " 

"Ah  that  doesn't  tell  me.  However,  it  doesn't 
matter  —  I  know.  It's  tremendously  neat  —  a  real 
reproach ;  quite  remarkably  thick  and  without,  as  yet, 
a  single  strand  of  white.  There ! " 

He  blushed  for  her  realism,  but  gaped  at  her  truth. 
"You're  the  very  deuce." 

"  What  else  should  I  be  ?  It  was  as  the  very  deuce 
I  pounced  on  you.  But  don't  let  it  trouble  you,  for 
everything  but  the  very  deuce  —  at  our  age  —  is  a 
bore  and  a  delusion,  and  even  he  himself,  after  all, 
but  half  a  joy."  With  which,  on  a  single  sweep  of 
her  wing,  she  resumed.  "You  assist  her  to  expiate 
—  which  is  rather  hard  when  you've  yourself  not 
sinned." 

"It's  she  who  hasn't  sinned,"  Strether  replied. 
"I've  sinned  the  most." 

"Ah,"  Miss  Gostrey  cynically  laughed,  "what  a 
picture  of  her!  Have  you  robbed  the  widow  and  the 
orphan  ?" 

"I've  sinned  enough,"  said  Strether. 

"  Enough  for  whom  ?  Enough  for  what  ? " 

"Well,  to  be  where  I  am." 

"Thank  you!"  They  were  disturbed  at  this  mo 
ment  by  the  passage  between  their  knees  and  the  back 

67 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

of  the  seats  before  them  of  a  gentleman  who  had  been 
absent  during  a  part  of  the  performance  and  who  now 
returned  for  the  close;  but  the  interruption  left  Miss 
Gostrey  time,  before  the  subsequent  hush,  to  express 
as  a  sharp  finality  her  sense  of  the  moral  of  all  their 
talk.  "I  knew  you  had  something  up  your  sleeve!" 
This  finality,  however,  left  them  in  its  turn,  at  the  end 
of  the  play,  as  disposed  to  hang  back  as  if  they  had 
still  much  to  say;  so  that  they  easily  agreed  to  let 
every  one  go  before  them  —  they  found  an  interest  in 
waiting.  They  made  out  from  the  lobby  that  the  night 
had  turned  to  rain ;  yet  Miss  Gostrey  let  her  friend 
know  that  he  was  n't  to  see  her  home.  He  was  simply 
to  put  her,  by  herself,  into  a  four-wheeler;  she  liked  so 
in  London,  of  wet  nights  after  wild  pleasures,  thinking 
things  over,  on  the  return,  in  lonely  four-wheelers. 
This  was  her  great  time,  she  intimated,  for  pulling 
herself  together.  The  delays  caused  by  the  weather, 
the  struggle  for  vehicles  at  the  door,  gave  them  occa 
sion  to  subside  on  a  divan  at  the  back  of  the  vestibule 
and  just  beyond  the  reach  of  the  fresh  damp  gusts 
from  the  street.  Here  Strether's  comrade  resumed 
that  free  handling  of  the  subject  to  which  his  own 
imagination  of  it  already  owed  so  much.  "Does  your 
young  friend  in  Paris  like  you  ? " 

It  had  almost,  after  the  interval,  startled  him.  "  Oh 
I  hope  not !  Why  should  he  ? " 

"Why  should  n't  he  ?"  Miss  Gostrey  asked.  "That 
you  're  coming  down  on  him  need  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it." 

"You  see  more  in  it,"  he  presently  returned, 
"than  I." 

68 


BOOK  SECOND 

"Of  course  I  see  you  in  it." 

"Well  then  you  see  more  in  'me'!" 

"Than  you  see  in  yourself?  Very  likely.  That's 
always  one's  right.  What  I  was  thinking  of,"  she  ex 
plained,  "  is  the  possible  particular  effect  on  him  of  his 
titilieu." 

"Oh  his  milieu —  !"  Strether  really  felt  he  could 
imagine  it  better  now  than  three  hours  before. 

"  Do  you  mean  it  can  only  have  been  so  lowering  ? " 

"Why  that's  my  very  starting-point." 

"Yes,  but  you  start  so  far  back.  What  do  his  letters 
say?" 

"Nothing.  He  practically  ignores  us  —  or  spares 
us.  He  does  n't  write." 

"  I  see.  But  there  are  all  the  same,"  she  went  on, 
"  two  quite  distinct  things  that  —  given  the  wonder 
ful  place  he 's  in  —  may  have  happened  to  him.  One 
is  that  he  may  have  got  brutalised.  The  other  is  that 
he  may  have  got  refined." 

Strether  stared  —  this  was  a  novelty.   "  Refined  ? " 

"Oh,"  she  said  quietly,  "there  are  refinements." 

The  way  of  it  made  him,  after  looking  at  her,  break 
into  a  laugh.  "You  have  them!" 

"As  one  of  the  signs,"  she  continued  in  the  same 
tone,  "they  constitute  perhaps  the  worst." 

He  thought  it  over  and  his  gravity  returned.  "Is  it 
a  refinement  not  to  answer  his  mother's  letters  ? " 

She  appeared  to  have  a  scruple,  but  she  brought  it 
out.  "  Oh  I  should  say  the  greatest  of  all." 

"Well,"  said  Strether,  "I'm  quite  content  to  let  it, 
as  one  of  the  signs,  pass  for  the  worst  that  I  know  he 
believes  he  can  do  what  he  likes  with  me." 
•    69 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

This  appeared  to  strike  her.  "How  do  you  know 
it?" 

"  Oh  I  'm  sure  of  it.   I  feel  it  in  my  bones." 

" Feel  he  can  do  it?" 

"  Feel  that  he  believes  he  can.  It  may  come  to  the 
same  thing!"  Strether  laughed. 

She  wouldn't,  however,  have  this.  "Nothing  for 
you  will  ever  come  to  the  same  thing  as  anything  else." 
And  she  understood  what  she  meant,  it  seemed,  suf 
ficiently  to  go  straight  on.  "You  say  that  if  he  does 
break  he  '11  come  in  for  things  at  home  ? " 

"Quite  positively.  He'll  come  in  for  a  particular 
chance  —  a  chance  that  any  properly  constituted 
young  man  would  jump  at.  The  business  has  so  de 
veloped  that  an  opening  scarcely  apparent  three  years 
ago,  but  which  his  father's  will  took  account  of  as 
in  certain  conditions  possible  and  which,  under  that 
will,  attaches  to  Chad's  availing  himself  of  it  a  large 
contingent  advantage  —  this  opening,  the  conditions 
having  come  about,  now  simply  awaits  him.  His 
mother  has  kept  it  for  him,  holding  out  against  strong 
pressure,  till  the  last  possible  moment.  It  requires, 
naturally,  as  it  carries  with  it  a  handsome  'part,'  a 
large  share  in  profits,  his  being  on  the  spot  and  mak 
ing  a  big  effort  for  a  big  result.  That's  what  I  mean 
by  his  chance.  If  he  misses  it  he  comes  in,  as  you  say, 
for  nothing.  And  to  see  that  he  does  n't  miss  it  is,  in 
a  word,  what  I've  come  out  for." 

She  let  it  all  sink  in.  "What  you've  come  out  for 
then  is  simply  to  render  him  an  immense  service." 

Well,  poor  Strether  was  willing  to  take  it  so.  "Ah 
if  you  like." 

70 


BOOK  SECOND 

"  He  stands,  as  they  say,  if  you  succeed  with  him, 
to  gain  — " 

"Oh  a  lot  of  advantages."  Strether  had  them 
clearly  at  his  fingers'  ends. 

"  By  which  you  mean  of  course  a  lot  of  money." 

"  Well,  not  only.  I  'm  acting  with  a  sense  for  him 
of  other  things  too.  Consideration  and  comfort  and 
security  —  the  general  safety  of  being  anchored  by  a 
strong  chain.  He  wants,  as  I  see  him,  to  be  protected. 
Protected  I  mean  from  life." 

"Ah  voila!" —  her  thought  fitted  with  a  click. 
"From  life.  What  you  really  want  to  get  him  home 
for  is  to  marry  him." 

"Well,  that's  about  the  size  of  it." 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "it's  rudimentary.  But  to 
any  one  in  particular?" 

He  smiled  at  this,  looking  a  little  more  conscious. 
"You  get  everything  out." 

For  a  moment  again  their  eyes  met.*  "You  put 
everything  in!" 

He  acknowledged  the  tribute  by  telling  her.  "To 
Mamie  Pocock." 

She  wondered ;  then  gravely,  even  exquisitely,  as  if 
to  make  the  oddity  also  fit :  "  His  own  niece  ? " 

"Oh  you  must  yourself  find  a  name  for  the  rela 
tion.  His  brother-in-law's  sister.  Mrs.  Jim's  sister- 
in-law." 

It  seemed  to  have  on  Miss  Gostrey  a  certain 
hardening  effect.  "And  who  in  the  world's  Mrs. 
Jim?" 

"  Chad's  sister  —  who  was  Sarah  Newsome.  She 's 
married  —  did  n't  I  mention  it  ?  —  to  Jim  Pocock." 

71 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"Ah  yes,"  she  tacitly  replied ;  but  he  had  mentioned 
things  — !  Then,  however,  with  all  the  sound  it  could 
have,  "Who  in  the  world's  Jim  Pocock?"  she 
asked. 

"Why  Sally's  husband.  That's  the  only  way  we 
distinguish  people  at  Woollett,"  he  good-humoredly 
explained. 

"And  is  it  a  great  distinction  —  being  Sally's 
husband  ?" 

He  considered.  "I  think  there  can  be  scarcely  a 
greater  —  unless  it  may  become  one,  in  the  future,  to 
be  Chad's  wife." 

"Then  how  do  they  distinguish  you?" 

"They  don't  —  except,  as  I've  told  you,  by  the 
green  cover." 

Once  more  their  eyes  met  on  it,  and  she  held  him  an 
instant.  "  The  green  cover  won't  —  nor  will  any  cover 
• —  avail  you  with  me.  You  're  of  a  depth  of  duplic 
ity  ! "  Still,  she  could  in  her  own  large  grasp  of  the 
real  condone  it.  "Is  Mamie  a  great  parti?" 

"  Oh  the  greatest  we  have  —  our  prettiest  brightest 
girl.'; 

Miss  Gostrey  seemed  to  fix  the  poor  child.  "  I  know 
what  they  can  be.  And  with  money  ? " 

"Not  perhaps  with  a  great  deal  of  that  —  but  with 
so  much  of  everything  else  that  we  don't  miss  it.  We 
dont  miss  money  much,  you  know,"  Strether  added, 
"in  general,  in  America,  in  pretty  girls." 

"No,"  she  conceded;  "  but  I  know  also  what  you  do 
sometimes  miss.  And  do  you,"  she  asked,  "yourself 
admire  her  ?  " 

It  was  a  question,  he  indicated,  that  there  might  be 
72 


BOOK  SECOND 

several  ways  of  taking;  but  he  decided  after  an  instant 
for  the  humorous.  "  Have  n't  I  sufficiently  showed 
you  how  I  admire  any  pretty  girl  ? " 

Her  interest  in  his  problem  was  by  this  time  such 
that  it  scarce  left  her  freedom,  and  she  kept  close  to 
the  facts.  "I  supposed  that  at  Woollett  you  wanted 
them  —  what  shall  I  call  it  ?  —  blameless.  I  mean 
your  young  men  for  your  pretty  girls." 

"So  did  I!"  Strether  confessed.  "But  you  strike 
there  a  curious  fact  —  the  fact  that  Woollett  too 
accommodates  itself  to  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  the 
increasing  mildness  of  manners.  Everything  changes, 
and  I  hold  that  our  situation  precisely  marks  a  date. 
We  should  prefer  them  blameless,  but  we  have  to 
make  the  best  of  them  as  we  find  them.  Since  the 
spirit  of  the  age  and  the  increasing  mildness  send 
them  so  much  more  to  Paris  — " 

"You've  to  take  them  back  as  they  come.  When 
they  do  come.  Bon!"  Once  more  she  embraced  it  all, 
but  she  had  a  moment  of  thought.  "  Poor  Chad ! " 

"Ah,"  said  Strether  cheerfully,  "Mamie  will  save 
him!" 

She  was  looking  away,  still  in  her  vision,  and  she 
spoke  with  impatience  and  almost  as  if  he  had  n't 
understood  her.  "Tou'll  save  him.  That's  who'll 
save  him." 

"Oh  but  with  Mamie's  aid.  Unless  indeed  you 
mean,"  he  added,  "that  I  shall  effect  so  much  more 
with  yours!" 

It  made  her  at  last  again  look  at  him.  "You'll  do 
more  —  as  you're  so  much  better  —  than  all  of  us  put 
together." 

73 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"I  think  I'm  only  better  since  I've  known  you!" 
Strether  bravely  returned. 

The  depletion  of  the  place,  the  shrinkage  of  the 
crowd  and  now  comparatively  quiet  withdrawal  of  its 
last  elements  had  already  brought  them  nearer  the 
door  and  put  them  in  relation  with  a  messenger  of 
whom  he  bespoke  Miss  Gostrey's  cab.  But  this  left 
them  a  few  minutes  more,  which  she  was  clearly  in  no 
mood  not  to  use.  "  You  've  spoken  to  me  of  what  — 
by  your  success  —  Mr.  Chad  stands  to  gain.  But 
you  've  not  spoken  to  me  of  what  you  do." 

"  Oh  I  've  nothing  more  to  gain,"  said  Strether  very 
simply. 

She  took  it  as  even  quite  too  simple.  "You  mean 
you've  got  it  all  'down'?  You've  been  paid  in 
advance  ?" 

"Ah  don't  talk  about  payment!"  he  groaned. 

Something  in  the  tone  of  it  pulled  her  up,  but  as 
their  messenger  still  delayed  she  had  another  chance 
and  she  put  it  in  another  way.  "  What  —  by  failure  — 
do  you  stand  to  lose  ? " 

He  still,  however,  would  n't  have  it.  "  Nothing ! " 
he  exclaimed,  and  on  the  messenger's  at  this  instant 
reappearing  he  was  able  to  sink  the  subject  in  their 
responsive  advance.  When,  a  few  steps  up  the  street, 
under  a  lamp,  he  had  put  her  into  her  four-wheeler 
and  she  had  asked  him  if  the  man  had  called  for  him 
no  second  conveyance,  he  replied  before  the  door  was 
closed.  "  You  won't  take  me  with  you  ? " 

"Not  for  the  world." 

"Then  I  shall  walk." 

"In  the  rain?" 

74 


BOOK  SECOND 

"  I  like  the  rain,"  said  Strether.   "  Good-night ! " 

She  kept  him  a  moment,  while  his  hand  was  on  the 
door,  by  not  answering;  after  which  she  answered  by 
repeating  her  question.  "What  do  you  stand  to 
lose?" 

Why  the  question  now  affected  him  as  other  he 
could  n't  have  said ;  he  could  only  this  time  meet  it 
otherwise.  "  Everything." 

"So  I  thought.  Then  you  shall  succeed.  And  to 
that  end  I'm  yours  — " 

"Ah,  dear  lady!"  he  kindly  breathed. 

"Till  death ! "  said  Maria  Gostrey.  "  Good-night." 


II 


STRETHER  called,  his  second  morning  in  Paris,  on  the 
bankers  of  the  Rue  Scribe  to  whom  his  letter  of  credit 
was  addressed,  and  he  made  this  visit  attended  by 
Waymarsh,  in  whose  company  he  had  crossed  from 
London  two  days  before.  They  had  hastened  to  the 
Rue  Scribe  on  the  morrow  of  their  arrival,  but 
Strether  had  not  then  found  the  letters  the  hope  of 
which  prompted  this  errand.  He  had  had  as  yet  none 
at  all ;  had  n't  expected  them  in  London,  but  had 
counted  on  several  in  Paris,  and,  disconcerted  now, 
had  presently  strolled  back  to  the  Boulevard  with  a 
sense  of  injury  that  he  felt  himself  taking  for  as  good 
a  start  as  any  other.  It  would  serve,  this  spur  to  his 
spirit,  he  reflected,  as,  pausing  at  the  top  of  the  street, 
he  looked  up  and  down  the  great  foreign  avenue,  it 
would  serve  to  begin  business  with.  His  idea  was  to 
begin  business  immediately,  and  it  did  much  for  him 
the  rest  of  his  day  that  the  beginning  of  business 
awaited  him.  He  did  little  else  till  night  but  ask  him 
self  what  he  should  do  if  he  had  n't  fortunately  had  so 
much  to  do ;  but  he  put  himself  the  question  in  many 
different  situations  and  connexions.  What  carried 
him  hither  and  yon  was  an  admirable  theory  that 
nothing  he  could  do  would  n't  be  in  some  manner 
related  to  what  he  fundamentally  had  on  hand,  or 
would  be  —  should  he  happen  to  have  a  scruple  — 
wasted  for  it.  He  did  happen  to  have  a  scruple  —  a 

76 


BOOK  SECOND 

scruple  about  taking  no  definite  step  till  he  should  get 
letters ;  but  this  reasoning  carried  it  off.  A  single  day 
to  feel  his  feet  —  he  had  felt  them  as  yet  only  at 
Chester  and  in  London  —  was,  he  could  consider, 
none  too  much ;  and  having,  as  he  had  often  privately 
expressed  it,  Paris  to  reckon  with,  he  threw  these 
hours  of  freshness  consciously  into  the  reckoning. 
They  made  it  continually  greater,  but  that  was  what 
it  had  best  be  if  it  was  to  be  anything  at  all,  and  he 
gave  himself  up  till  far  into  the  evening,  at  the  theatre 
and  on  the  return,  after  the  theatre,  along  the  bright 
congested  Boulevard,  to  feeling  it  grow.  Waymarsh 
had  accompanied  him  this  time  to  the  play,  and  the 
two  men  had  walked  together,  as  a  first  stage,  from 
the  Gymnase  to  the  Cafe  Riche,  into  the  crowded 
"terrace"  of  which  establishment  —  the  night,  or 
rather  the  morning,  for  midnight  had  struck,  being 
bland  and  populous  —  they  had  wedged  themselves 
for  refreshment.  Waymarsh,  as  a  result  of  some  dis 
cussion  with  his  friend,  had  made  a  marked  virtue  of 
his  having  now  let  himself  go;  and  there  had  been  ele 
ments  of  impression  in  their  half-hour  over  their  wa 
tered  beer-glasses  that  gave  him  his  occasion  for  con 
veying  that  he  held  this  compromise  with  his  stiffer 
self  to  have  become  extreme.  He  conveyed  it  —  for  it 
was  still,  after  all,  his  stiffer  self  who  gloomed  out  of 
the  glare  of  the  terrace  —  in  solemn  silence ;  and 
there  was  indeed  a  great  deal  of  critical  silence,  every 
way,  between  the  companions,  even  till  they  gained 
the  Place  de  POpera,  as  to  the  character  of  their 
nocturnal  progress. 
This  morning  there  were  letters  —  letters  which 

77 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

had  reached  London,  apparently  all  together,  the  day 
of  Strether' s  journey,  and  had  taken  their  time  to  fol 
low  him;  so  that,  after  a  controlled  impulse  to  go  into 
them  in  the  reception-room  of  the  bank,  which,  re 
minding  him  of  the  post-office  at  Woollett,  affected 
him  as  the  abutment  of  some  transatlantic  bridge,  he 
slipped  them  into  the  pocket  of  his  loose  grey  over 
coat  with  a  sense  of  the  felicity  of  carrying  them  off. 
Waymarsh,  who  had  had  letters  yesterday,  had  had 
them  again  to-day,  and  Waymarsh  suggested  in  this 
particular  no  controlled  impulses.  The  last  one  he  was 
at  all  events  likely  to  be  observed  to  struggle  with  was 
clearly  that  of  bringing  to  a  premature  close  any  visit 
to  the  Rue  Scribe.  Strether  had  left  him  there  yester 
day ;  he  wanted  to  see  the  papers,  and  he  had  spent,  by 
what  his  friend  could  make  out,  a  succession  of  hours 
with  the  papers.  He  spoke  of  the  establishment,  with 
emphasis,  as  a  post  of  superior  observation;  just  as  he 
spoke  generally  of  his  actual  damnable  doom  as  a 
device  for  hiding  from  him  what  was  going  on.  Eu 
rope  was  best  described,  to  his  mind,  as  an  elaborate 
engine  for  dissociating  the  confined  American  from 
that  indispensable  knowledge,  and  was  accordingly 
only  rendered  bearable  by  these  occasional  stations  of 
relief,  traps  for  the  arrest  of  wandering  western  airs. 
Strether,  on  his  side,  set  himself  to  walk  again  —  he 
had  his  relief  in  his  pocket;  and  indeed,  much  as 
he  had  desired  his  budget,  the  growth  of  restlessness 
might  have  been  marked  in  him  from  the  moment  he 
had  assured  himself  of  the  superscription  of  most  of 
the  missives  it  contained.  This  restlessness  became 
therefore  his  temporary  law ;  he  knew  he  should  recog- 

78 


BOOK  SECOND 

nise  as  soon  as  see  it  the  best  place  of  all  for  settling 
down  with  his  chief  correspondent.  He  had  for  the 
next  hour  an  accidental  air  of  looking  for  it  in  the 
windows  of  shops ;  he  came  down  the  Rue  de  la  Paix 
in  the  sun  and,  passing  across  the  Tuileries  and  the 
river,  indulged  more  than  once  —  as  if  on  finding 
himself  determined  —  in  a  sudden  pause  before  the 
book-stalls  of  the  opposite  quay.  In  the  garden  of  the 
Tuileries  he  had  lingered,  on  two  or  three  spots,  to 
look;  it  was  as  if  the  wonderful  Paris  spring  had 
stayed  him  as  he  roamed.  The  prompt  Paris  morning 
struck  its  cheerful  notes  —  in  a  soft  breeze  and  a 
sprinkled  smell,  in  the  light  flit,  over  the  garden-floor, 
of  bareheaded  girls  with  the  buckled  strap  of  oblong 
boxes,  in  the  type  of  ancient  thrifty  persons  basking 
betimes  where  terrace-walls  were  warm,  in  the  blue- 
frocked  brass-labelled  officialism  of  humble  rakers 
and  scrapers,  in  the  deep  references  of  a  straight- 
pacing  priest  or  the  sharp  ones  of  a  white-gaitered  red- 
legged  soldier.  He  watched  little  brisk  figures,  figures 
whose  movement  was  as  the  tick  of  the  great  Paris 
clock,  take  their  smooth  diagonal  from  point  to  point; 
the  air  had  a  taste  as  of  something  mixed  with  art, 
something  that  presented  nature  as  a  white-capped 
master-chef.  The  palace  was  gone,  Strether  remem 
bered  the  palace;  and  when  he  gazed  into  the  irreme 
diable  void  of  its  site  the  historic  sense  in  him  might 
have  been  freely  at  play  —  the  play  under  which  in 
Paris  indeed  it  so  often  winces  like  a  touched  nerve. 
He  filled  out  spaces  with  dim  symbols  of  scenes ;  he 
caught  the  gleam  of  white  statues  at  the  base  of 
which,  with  his  letters  out,  he  could  tilt  back  a  straw- 

79 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

bottomed  chair.  But  his  drift  was,  for  reasons,  to  the 
other  side,  and  it  floated  him  unspent  up  the  Rue  de 
Seine  and  as  far  as  the  Luxembourg. 

In  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  he  pulled  up ;  here  at 
last  he  found  his  nook,  and  here,  on  a  penny  chair 
from  which  terraces,  alleys,  vistas,  fountains,  little 
trees  in  green  tubs,  little  women  in  white  caps  and 
shrill  little  girls  at  play  all  sunnily  "composed"  to 
gether,  he  passed  an  hour  in  which  the  cup  of  his 
impressions  seemed  truly  to  overflow.  But  a  week 
had  elapsed  since  he  quitted  the  ship,  and  there  were 
more  things  in  his  mind  than  so  few  days  could 
account  for.  More  than  once,  during  the  time,  he  had 
regarded  himself  as  admonished ;  but  the  admonition 
this  morning  was  formidably  sharp.  It  took  as  it 
had  n't  done  yet  the  form  of  a  question  —  the  ques 
tion  of  what  he  was  doing  with  such  an  extraordinary 
sense  of  escape.  This  sense  was  sharpest  after  he  had 
read  his  letters,  but  that  was  also  precisely  why  the 
question  pressed.  Four  of  the  letters  were  from  Mrs. 
Newsome  and  none  of  them  short;  she  had  lost  no 
time,  had  followed  on  his  heels  while  he  moved,  so 
expressing  herself  that  he  now  could  measure  the 
probable  frequency  with  which  he  should  hear.  They 
would  arrive,  it  would  seem,  her  communications,  at 
the  rate  of  several  a  week ;  he  should  be  able  to  count, 
it  might  even  prove,  on  more  than  one  by  each  mail. 
If  he  had  begun  yesterday  with  a  small  grievance  he 
had  therefore  an  opportunity  to  begin  to-day  with  its 
opposite.  He  read  the  letters  successively  and  slowly, 
putting  others  back  into  his  pocket  but  keeping  these 
for  a  long  time  afterwards  gathered  in  his  lap.  He 

80 


BOOK  SECOND 

held  them  there,  lost  in  thought,  as  if  to  prolong  the 
presence  of  what  they  gave  him ;  or  as  if  at  the  least 
to  assure  them  their  part  in  the  constitution  of  some 
lucidity.  His  friend  wrote  admirably,  and  her  tone 
was  even  more  in  her  style  than  in  her  voice  —  he 
might  almost,  for  the  hour,  have  had  to  come  this  dis 
tance  to  get  its  full  carrying  quality ;  yet  the  plentitude 
of  his  consciousness  of  difference  consorted  perfectly 
with  the  deepened  intensity  of  the  connexion.  It  was 
the  difference,  the  difference  of  being  just  where  he 
was  and  as  he  was,  that  formed  the  escape  —  this 
difference  was  so  much  greater  than  he  had  dreamed 
it  would  be;  and  what  he  finally  sat  there  turning  over 
was  the  strange  logic  of  his  finding  himself  so  free. 
He  felt  it  in  a  manner  his  duty  to  think  out  his  state, 
to  approve  the  process,  and  when  he  came  in  fact  to 
trace  the  steps  and  add  up  the  items  they  sufficiently 
accounted  for  the  sum.  He  had  never  expected  — 
that  was  the  truth  of  it  —  again  to  find  himself  young, 
and  all  the  years  and  other  things  it  had  taken  to  make 
him  so  were  exactly  his  present  arithmetic.  He  had 
to  make  sure  of  them  to  put  his  scruple  to  rest. 

It  all  sprang  at  bottom  from  the  beauty  of  Mrs. 
Newsome's  desire  that  he  should  be  worried  with 
nothing  that  was  not  of  the  essence  of  his  task;  by 
insisting  that  he  should  thoroughly  intermit  and 
break  she  had  so  provided  for  his  freedom  that  she 
would,  as  it  were,  have  only  herself  to  thank.  Strether 
could  not  at  this  point  indeed  have  completed  his 
thought  by  the  image  of  what  she  might  have  to 
thank  herself  for:  the  image,  at  best,  of  his  own  like 
ness  —  poor  Lambert  Strether  washed  up  on  the 

81 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

sunny  strand  by  the  waves  of  a  single  day,  poor  Lam 
bert  Strether  thankful  for  breathing-time  and  stiffen 
ing  himself  while  he  gasped.  There  he  was,  and  with 
nothing  in  his  aspect  or  his  posture  to  scandalise :  it 
was  only  true  that  if  he  had  seen  Mrs.  Newsome  com 
ing  he  would  instinctively  have  jumped  up  to  walk 
away  a  little.  He  would  have  come  round  and  back 
to  her  bravely,  but  he  would  have  had  first  to  pull 
himself  together.  She  abounded  in  news  of  the  situa 
tion  at  home,  proved  to  him  how  perfectly  she  was 
arranging  for  his  absence,  told  him  who  would  take 
up  this  and  who  take  up  that  exactly  where  he  had 
left  it,  gave  him  in  fact  chapter  and  verse  for  the 
moral  that  nothing  would  suffer.  It  filled  for  him, 
this  tone  of  hers,  all  the  air;  yet  it  struck  him  at  the 
same  time  as  the  hum  of  vain  things.  This  latter 
effect  was  what  he  tried  to  justify  —  and  with  the 
success  that,  grave  though  the  appearance,  he  at  last 
lighted  on  a  form  that  was  happy.  He  arrived  at  it  by 
the  inevitable  recognition  of  his  having  been  a  fort 
night  before  one  of  the  weariest  of  men.  If  ever  a  man 
had  come  off  tired  Lambert  Strether  was  that  man ; 
and  had  n't  it  been  distinctly  on  the  ground  of  his 
fatigue  that  his  wonderful  friend  at  home  had  so  felt 
for  him  and  so  contrived  ?  It  seemed  to  him  somehow 
at  these  instants  that,  could  he  only  maintain  with 
sufficient  firmness  his  grasp  of  that  truth,  it  might 
become  in  a  manner  his  compass  and  his  helm.  What 
he  wanted  most  was  some  idea  that  would  simplify, 
and  nothing  would  do  this  so  much  as  the  fact  that  he 
was  done  for  and  finished.  If  it  had  been  in  such  a 
light  that  he  had  just  detected  in  his  cup  the  dregs  of 

82 


BOOK  SECOND 

youth,  that  was  a  mere  flaw  of  the  surface  of  his 
scheme.  He  was  so  distinctly  fagged-out  that  it  must 
serve  precisely  as  his  convenience,  and  if  he  could  but 
consistently  be  good  for  little  enough  he  might  do 
everything  he  wanted. 

Everything  he  wanted  was  comprised  moreover 
in  a  single  boon  —  the  common  unattainable  art  of 
taking  things  as  they  came.  He  appeared  to  himself 
to  have  given  his  best  years  to  an  active  appreciation 
of  the  way  they  did  n't  come;  but  perhaps  —  as  they 
would  seemingly  here  be  things  quite  other  —  this 
long  ache  might  at  last  drop  to  rest.  He  could  easily 
see  that  from  the  moment  he  should  accept  the  notion 
of  his  foredoomed  collapse  the  last  thing  he  would  lack 
would  be  reasons  and  memories.  Oh  if  he  should  do 
the  sum  no  slate  would  hold  the  figures !  The  fact  that 
he  had  failed,  as  he  considered,  in  everything,  in  each 
relation  and  in  half  a  dozen  trades,  as  he  liked  luxuri 
ously  to  put  it,  might  have  made,  might  still  make,  for 
an  empty  present;  but  it  stood  solidly  for  a  crowded 
past.  It  had  not  been,  so  much  achievement  missed, 
a  light  yoke  nor  a  short  load.  It  was  at  present  as 
if  the  backward  picture  had  hung  there,  the  long 
crooked  course,  grey  in  the  shadow  of  his  solitude. 
It  had  been  a  dreadful  cheerful  sociable  solitude,  a 
solitude  of  life  or  choice,  of  community;  but  though 
there  had  been  people  enough  all  round  it  there  had 
been  but  three  or  four  persons  in  it.  Waymarsh  was 
one  of  these,  and  the  fact  struck  him  just  now  as  mark 
ing  the  record.  Mrs.  Newsome  was  another,  and  Miss 
Gostrey  had  of  a  sudden  shown  signs  of  becoming  a 
third.  Beyond,  behind  them  was  the  pale  figure  of  his 

83 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

real  youth,  which  held  against  its  breast  the  two  pre 
sences  paler  than  itself  —  the  young  wife  he  had  early 
lost  and  the  young  son  he  had  stupidly  sacrificed.  He 
had  again  and  again  made  out  for  himself  that  he 
might  have  kept  his  little  boy,  his  little  dull  boy  who 
had  died  at  school  of  rapid  diphtheria,  if  he  had  not 
in  those  years  so  insanely  given  himself  to  merely 
missing  the  mother.  It  was  the  soreness  of  his  re 
morse  that  the  child  had  in  all  likelihood  not  really 
been  dull  —  had  been  dull,  as  he  had  been  banished 
and  neglected,  mainly  because  the  father  had  been 
unwittingly  selfish.  This  was  doubtless  but  the  secret 
habit  of  sorrow,  which  had  slowly  given  way  to  time ; 
yet  there  remained  an  ache  sharp  enough  to  make  the 
spirit,  at  the  sight  now  and  again  of  some  fair  young 
man  just  growing  up,  wince  with  the  thought  of  an 
opportunity  lost.  Had  ever  a  man,  he  had  finally 
fallen  into  the  way  of  asking  himself,  lost  so  much 
and  even  done  so  much  for  so  little  ?  There  had  been 
particular  reasons  why  all  yesterday,  beyond  other 
days,  he  should  have  had  in  one  ear  this  cold  enquiry. 
His  name  on  the  green  cover,  where  he  had  put  it  for 
Mrs.  Newsome,  expressed  him  doubtless  just  enough 
to  make  the  world  —  the  world  as  distinguished,  both 
for  more  and  for  less,  from  Woollett  —  ask  who  he 
was.  He  had  incurred  the  ridicule  of  having  to  have 
his  explanation  explained.  He  was  Lambert  Strether 
because  he  was  on  the  cover,  whereas  it  should  have 
been,  for  anything  like  glory,  that  he  was  on  the  cover 
because  he  was  Lambert  Strether.  He  would  have 
done  anything  for  Mrs.  Newsome,  have  been  still 
more  ridiculous  —  as  he  might,  for  that  matter,  have 


BOOK  SECOND 

occasion  to  be  yet;  which  came  to  saying  that  this  ac 
ceptance  of  fate  was  all  he  had  to  show  at  fifty-five. 
He  judged  the  quantity  as  small  because  ir  was 
small,  and  all  the  more  egregiously  since  it  could  n't, 
as  he  saw  the  case,  so  much  as  thinkably  have  been 
larger.  He  had  n't  had  the  gift  of  making  the  most 
of  what  he  tried,  and  if  he  had  tried  and  tried  again  — 
no  one  but  himself  knew  how  often  —  it  appeared  to 
have  been  that  he  might  demonstrate  what  else,  in 
default  of  that,  could  be  made.  Old  ghosts  of  experi 
ments  came  back  to  him,  old  drudgeries  and  delusions, 
and  disgusts,  old  recoveries  with  their  relapses,  old 
fevers  with  their  chills,  broken  moments  of  good  faith, 
others  of  still  better  doubt;  adventures,  for  the  most 
part,  of  the  sort  qualified  as  lessons.  The  special 
spring  that  had  constantly  played  for  him  the  day  be 
fore  was  the  recognition  —  frequent  enough  to  sur 
prise  him  —  of  the  promises  to  himself  that  he  had 
after  his  other  visit  never  kept.  The  reminiscence 
to-day  most  quickened  for  him  was  that  of  the  vow 
taken  in  the  course  of  the  pilgrimage  that,  newly- 
married,  with  the  War  just  over,  and  helplessly  young 
in  spite  of  it,  he  had  recklessly  made  with  the  creature 
who  was  so  much  younger  still.  It  had  been  a  bold 
dash,  for  which  they  had  taken  money  set  apart  for  ne 
cessities,  but  kept  sacred  at  the  moment  in  a  hundred 
ways,  and  in  none  more  so  than  by  this  private  pledge 
of  his  own  to  treat  the  occasion  as  a  relation  formed 
with  the  higher  culture  and  see  that,  as  they  said  at 
Woollett,  it  should  bear  a  good  harvest.  He  had  be 
lieved,  sailing  home  again,  that  he  had  gained  some 
thing  great,  and  his  theory  —  with  an  elaborate  in- 

85 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

nocent  plan  of  reading,  digesting,  coming  back  even, 
every  few  years  —  had  then  been  to  preserve,  cherish 
and  extend  it.  As  such  plans  as  these  had  come  to 
nothing,  however,  in  respect  to  acquisitions  still  more 
precious,  it  was  doubtless  little  enough  of  a  marvel  that 
he  should  have  lost  account  of  that  handful  of  seed. 
Buried  for  long  years  in  dark  corners  at  any  rate  these 
few  germs  had  sprouted  again  under  forty-eight  hours 
of  Paris.  The  process  of  yesterday  had  really  been  the 
process  of  feeling  the  general  stirred  life  of  connexions 
long  since  individually  dropped.  Strether  had  become 
acquainted  even  on  this  ground  with  short  gusts  of 
speculation  —  sudden  flights  of  fancy  in  Louvre  gal 
leries,  hungry  gazes  through  clear  plates  behind  which 
lemon-coloured  volumes  were  as  fresh  as  fruit  on  the 
tree. 

There  were  instants  at  which  he  could  ask  whether, 
since  there  had  been  fundamentally  so  little  question 
of  his  keeping  anything,  the  fate  after  all  decreed  for 
him  had  n't  been  only  to  be  kept.  Kept  for  something, 
in  that  event,  that  he  did  n't  pretend,  did  n't  possibly 
dare  as  yet  to  divine;  something  that  made  him  hover 
and  wonder  and  laugh  and  sigh,  made  him  advance 
and  retreat,  feeling  half  ashamed  of  his  impulse  to 
plunge  and  more  than  half  afraid  of  his  impulse  to 
wait.  He  remembered  for  instance  how  he  had  gone 
back  in  the  sixties  with  lemon-coloured  volumes  in 
general  on  the  brain  as  well  as  with  a  dozen  —  se 
lected  for  his  wife  too  —  in  his  trunk ;  and  nothing 
had  at  the  moment  shown  more  confidence  than  this 
invocation  of  the  finer  taste.  They  were  still  some 
where  at  home,  the  dozen  —  stale  and  soiled  and 

86 


BOOK  SECOND 

never  sent  to  the  binder;  but  what  had  become  of  the 
sharp  initiation  they  represented  ?  They  represented 
now  the  mere  sallow  paint  on  the  door  of  the  temple 
of  taste  that  he  had  dreamed  of  raising  up  —  a  struct 
ure  he  had  practically  never  carried  further.  Streth- 
er's  present  highest  flights  were  perhaps  those  in 
which  this  particular  lapse  figured  to  him  as  a  symbol, 
a  symbol  of  his  long  grind  and  his  want  of  odd  mo 
ments,  his  want  moreover  of  money,  of  opportunity, 
of  positive  dignity.  That  the  memory  of  the  vow  of  his 
youth  should,  in  order  to  throb  again,  have  had  to  wait 
for  this  last,  as  he  felt  it,  of  all  his  accidents  —  that 
was  surely  proof  enough  of  how  his  conscience  had 
been  encumbered.  If  any  further  proof  were  needed  it 
would  have  been  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that,  as  he 
perfectly  now  saw,  he  had  ceased  even  to  measure  his 
meagreness,  a  meagreness  that  sprawled,  in  this  retro 
spect,  vague  and  comprehensive,  stretching  back  like 
some  unmapped  Hinterland  from  a  rough  coast-set 
tlement.  His  conscience  had  been  amusing  itself  for  the 
forty-eight  hours  by  forbidding  him  the  purchase  of  a 
book;  he  held  off  from  that,  held  off  from  everything; 
from  the  moment  he  did  n't  yet  call  on  Chad  he  would 
n't  for  the  world  have  taken  any  other  step.  On  this 
evidence,  however,  of  the  way  they  actually  affected 
him  he  glared  at  the  lemon-coloured  covers  in  confes 
sion  of  the  subconsciousness  that,  all  the  same,  in  the 
great  desert  of  the  years,  he  must  have  had  of  them. 
The  green  covers  at  home  comprised,  by  the  law  of 
their  purpose,  no  tribute  to  letters;  it  was  of  a  mere 
rich  kernel  of  economics,  politics,  ethics  that,  glazed 
and,  as  Mrs.  Newsome  maintained  rather  against  his 

87 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

view,  pre-eminently  pleasant  to  touch,  they  formed 
the  specious  shell.  Without  therefore  any  needed  in 
stinctive  knowledge  of  what  was  coming  out,  in  Paris, 
on  the  bright  highway,  he  struck  himself  at  present  as 
having  more  than  once  flushed  with  a  suspicion :  he 
could  n't  otherwise  at  present  be  feeling  so  many  fears 
confirmed.  There  were  "  movements  "  he  was  too  late 
for:  were  n't  they,  with  the  fun  of  them,  already 
spent  ?  There  were  sequences  he  had  missed  and  great 
gaps  in  the  procession :  he  might  have  been  watching 
it  all  recede  in  a  golden  cloud  of  dust.  If  the  playhouse 
was  n't  closed  his  seat  had  at  least  fallen  to  somebody 
else.  He  had  had  an  uneasy  feeling  the  night  before 
that  if  he  was  at  the  theatre  at  all  —  though  he  indeed 
justified  the  theatre,  in  the  specific  sense,  and  with  a 
grotesqueness  to  which  his  imagination  did  all  honour, 
as  something  he  owed  poor  Waymarsh  —  he  should 
have  been  there  with,  and  as  might  have  been  said, 
for  Chad. 

This  suggested  the  question  of  whether  he  could 
properly  have  taken  him  to  such  a  play,  and  what 
effect  —  it  was  a  point  that  suddenly  rose  —  his  pe 
culiar  responsibility  might  be  held  in  general  to  have 
on  his  choice  of  entertainment.  It  had  literally  been 
present  to  him  at  the  Gymnase  —  where  one  was  held 
moreover  comparatively  safe  —  that  having  his  young 
friend  at  his  side  would  have  been  an  odd  feature  of 
the  work  of  redemption ;  and  this  quite  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  picture  presented  might  well,  confronted 
with  Chad's  own  private  stage,  have  seemed  the  pat 
tern  of  propriety.  He  clearly  had  n't  come  out  in  the 
name  of  propriety  but  to  visit  unattended  equivocal 


BOOK  SECOND 

performances;  yet  still  less  had  he  done  so  to  under 
mine  his  authority  by  sharing  them  with  the  graceless 
youth.  Was  he  to  renounce  all  amusement  for  the 
sweet  sake  of  that  authority  ?  and  would  such  re 
nouncement  give  him  for  Chad  a  moral  glamour? 
The  little  problem  bristled  the  more  by  reason  of  poor 
Strether's  fairly  open  sense  of  the  irony  of  things. 
Were  there  then  sides  on  which  his  predicament 
threatened  to  look  rather  droll  to  him  ?  Should  he 
have  to  pretend  to  believe  —  either  to  himself  or  the 
wretched  boy  —  that  there  was  anything  that  could 
make  the  latter  worse  ?  Was  n't  some  such  pretence 
on  the  other  hand  involved  in  the  assumption  of  pos 
sible  processes  that  would  make  him  better?  His 
greatest  uneasiness  seemed  to  peep  at  him  out  of  the 
imminent  impression  that  almost  any  acceptance  of 
Paris  might  give  one's  authority  away.  It  hung  before 
him  this  morning,  the  vast  bright  Babylon,  like  some 
huge  iridescent  object,  a  jewel  brilliant  and  hard, 
in  which  parts  were  not  to  be  discriminated  nor  differ 
ences  comfortably  marked.  It  twinkled  and  trembled 
and  melted  together,  and  what  seemed  all  surface  one 
moment  seemed  all  depth  the  next.  It  was  a  place  of 
which,  unmistakeably,  Chad  was  fond;  wherefore 
if  he,  Strether,  should  like  it  too  much,  what  on  earth, 
with  such  a  bond,  would  become  of  either  of  them  ? 
It  all  depended  of  course  —  which  was  a  gleam  of 
light  —  on  how  the  "too  much"  was  measured; 
though  indeed  our  friend  fairly  felt,  while  he  prolonged 
the  meditation  I  describe,  that  for  himself  even  al 
ready  a  certain  measure  had  been  reached.  It  will 
have  been  sufficiently  seen  that  he  was  not  a  man  to 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

neglect  any  good  chance  for  reflexion.  Was  it  at  all 
possible  for  instance  to  like  Paris  enough  without 
liking  it  too  much  ?  He  luckily  however  had  n't  pro 
mised  Mrs.  Newsome  not  to  like  it  at  all.  He  was 
ready  to  recognise  at  this  stage  that  such  an  engage 
ment  would  have  tied  his  hands.  The  Luxembourg 
Gardens  were  incontestably  just  so  adorable  at  this 
hour  by  reason  —  in  addition  to  their  intrinsic  charm 
—  of  his  not  having  taken  it.  The  only  engagement 
he  had  taken,  when  he  looked  the  thing  in  the  face, 
was  to  do  what  he  reasonably  could. 

It  upset  him  a  little  none  the  less  and  after  a  while 
to  find  himself  at  last  remembering  on  what  current 
of  association  he  had  been  floated  so  far.  Old  imagin 
ations  of  the  Latin  Quarter  had  played  their  part  for 
him,  and  he  had  duly  recalled  its  having  been  with 
this  scene  of  rather  ominous  legend  that,  like  so  many 
young  men  in  fiction  as  well  as  in  fact,  Chad  had  be 
gun'.  He  was  now  quite  out  of  it,  with  his  "  home," 
as  Strether  figured  the  place,  in  the  Boulevard  Males- 
herbes;  which  was  perhaps  why,  repairing,  not  to 
fail  of  justice  either,  to  the  elder  neighbourhood,  our 
friend  had  felt  he  could  allow  for  the  element  of  the 
usual,  the  immemorial,  without  courting  perturba 
tion.  He  was  not  at  least  in  danger  of  seeing  the  youth 
and  the  particular  Person  flaunt  by  together;  and  yet 
he  was  in  the  very  air  of  which  —  just  to  feel  what  the 
early  natural  note  must  have  been  —  he  wished  most 
to  take  counsel.  It  became  at  once  vivid  to  him  that 
he  had  originally  had,  for  a  few  days,  an  almost  envi 
ous  vision  of  the  boy's  romantic  privilege.  Melancholy 
Miirger,  with  Francine  and  Musette  and  Rodolphe, 

90 


BOOK  SECOND 

at  home,  in  the  company  of  the  tattered,  ojie  —  if  he 
not  in  his  single  self  two  or  three  —  of  the  unbound, 
the  paper-covered  dozen  on  the  shelf;  and  when  Chad 
had  written,  five  years  ago,  after  a  sojourn  then  al 
ready  prolonged  to  six  months,  that  he  had  decided  to 
go  in  for  economy  and  the  real  thing,  Strether's  fancy 
had  quite  fondly  accompanied  him  in  this  migration, 
which  was  to  convey  him,  as  they  somewhat  confus 
edly  learned  at  Woollett,  across  the  bridges  and  up  the 
Montagne  Sainte-Genevieve.  This  was  the  region  — 
Chad  had  been  quite  distinct  about  it  —  in  which  the 
best  French,  and  many  other  things,  were  to  be  learned 
at  least  cost,  and  in  which  all  sorts  of  clever  fellows, 
compatriots  there  for  a  purpose,  formed  an  awfully 
pleasant  set.  The  clever  fellows,  the  friendly  country 
men  were  mainly  young  painters,  sculptors,  architects, 
medical  students ;  but  they  were,  Chad  sagely  opined, 
a  much  more  profitable  lot  to  be  with  —  even  on  the 
footing  of  not  being  quite  one  of  them  —  than  the 
"terrible  toughs"  (Strether  remembered  the  edifying 
discrimination)  of  the  American  bars  and  banks 
roundabout  the  Opera.  Chad  had  thrown  out,  in  the 
communications  following  this  one  —  for  at  that  time 
he  did  once  in  a  while  communicate  —  that  several 
members  of  a  band  of  earnest  workers  under  one  of 
the  great  artists  had  taken  him  right  in,  making  him 
dine  every  night,  almost  for  nothing,  at  their  place,  and 
even  pressing  him  not  to  neglect  the  hypothesis  of  there 
being  as  much  "in  him"  as  in  any  of  them.  There 
had  been  literally  a  moment  at  which  it  appeared 
there  might  be  something  in  him;  there  had  been 
at  any  rate  a  moment  at  which  he  had  written  that 

91 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

he  did  n't  know  but  what  a  month  or  two  more  might 
see  him  enrolled  in  some  atelier.  The  season  had  been 
one  at  which  Mrs.  Newsome  was  moved  to  gratitude 
for  small  mercies ;  it  had  broken  on  them  all  as  a  bless 
ing  that  their  absentee  had  perhaps  a  conscience  — 
that  he  was  sated  in  fine  with  idleness,  was  ambitious 
of  variety.  The  exhibition  was  doubtless  as  yet  not 
brilliant,  but  Strether  himself,  even  by  that  time  much 
enlisted  and  immersed,  had  determined,  on  the  part 
of  the  two  ladies,  a  temperate  approval  and  in  fact,  as 
he  now  recollected,  a  certain  austere  enthusiasm. 

But  the  very  next  thing  that  happened  had  been 
a  dark  drop  of  the  curtain.  The  son  and  brother  had 
not  browsed  long  on  the  Montagne  Sainte-Genevieve 
—  his  effective  little  use  of  the  name  of  which,  like  his 
allusion  to  the  best  French,  appeared  to  have  been  but 
one  of  the  notes  of  his  rough  cunning.  The  light  re 
freshment  of  these  vain  appearances  had  not  accord 
ingly  carried  any  of  them  very  far.  On  the  other  hand 
it  had  gained  Chad  time;  it  had  given  him  a  chance, 
unchecked,  to  strike  his  roots,  had  paved  the  way  for 
initiations  more  direct  and  more  deep.  It  was  Streth- 
er's  belief  that  he  had  been  comparatively  innocent 
before  this  first  migration,  and  even  that  the  first  ef 
fects  of  the  migration  would  not  have  been,  without 
some  particular  bad  accident,  to  have  been  deplored. 
There  had  been  three  months  —  he  had  sufficiently 
figured  it  out  —  in  which  Chad  had  wanted  to  try. 
He  had  tried,  though  not  very  hard  —  he  had  had  his 
little  hour  of  good  faith.  The  weakness  of  this  prin 
ciple  in  him  was  that  almost  any  accident  attestedly 
bad  enough  was  stronger.  Such  had  at  any  rate 

92 


BOOK  SECOND 

markedly  been  the  case  for  the  precipitation  of  a  spe 
cial  series  of  impressions.  They  had  proved,  success 
ively,  these  impressions  —  all  of  Musette  and  Fran- 
cine,  but  Musette  and  Francine  vulgarised  by  the 
larger  evolution  of  the  type  —  irresistibly  sharp :  he 
had  "taken  up,'*  by  what  was  at  the  time  to  be  shrink- 
ingly  gathered,  as  it  was  scantly  mentioned,  with  one 
ferociously  "interested"  little  person  after  another. 
Strether  had  read  somewhere  of  a  Latin  motto,  a  de 
scription  of  the  hours,  observed  on  a  clock  by  a  trav 
eller  in  Spain;  and  he  had  been  led  to  apply  it  in 
thought  to  Chad's  number  one,  number  two,  number 
three.  Omnes  vulnerant,  ultima  necat  —  they  had  all 
morally  wounded,  the  last  had  morally  killed.  The 
last  had  been  longest  in  possession  —  in  possession, 
that  is,  of  whatever  was  left  of  the  poor  boy's  finer 
mortality.  And  it  had  n't  been  she,  it  had  been  one 
of  her  early  predecessors,  who  had  determined  the 
second  migration,  the  expensive  return  and  relapse, 
the  exchange  again,  as  was  fairly  to  be  presumed, 
of  the  vaunted  best  French  for  some  special  variety 
of  the  worst. 

He  pulled  himself  then  at  last  together  for  his  own 
progress  back ;  not  with  the  feeling  that  he  had  taken 
his  walk  in  vain.  He  prolonged  it  a  little,  in  the  imme 
diate  neighbourhood,  after  he  had  quitted  his  chair; 
and  the  upshot  of  the  whole  morning  for  him  was 
that  his  campaign  had  begun.  He  had  wanted  to  put 
himself  in  relation,  and  he  would  be  hanged  if  he  were 
not  in  relation.  He  was  that  at  no  moment  so  much  as 
while,  under  the  old  arches  of  the  Odeon,  he  lingered 
before  the  charming  open-air  array  of  literature  classic 

93 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

and  casual.  He  found  the  effect  of  tone  and  tint, 
in  the  long  charged  tables  and  shelves,  delicate  and 
appetising;  the  impression  —  substituting  one  kind 
of  low-priced  consommation  for  another  —  might 
have  been  that  of  one  of  the  pleasant  cafes  that  over 
lapped,  under  an  awning,  to  the  pavement;  but  he 
edged  along,  grazing  the  tables,  with  his  hands  firmly 
behind  him.  He  was  n't  there  to  dip,  to  consume  — 
he  was  there  to  reconstruct.  He  was  n't  there  for  his 
own  profit  —  not,  that  is,  the  direct ;  he  was  there  on 
some  chance  of  feeling  the  brush  of  the  wing  of  the 
stray  spirit  of  youth.  He  felt  it  in  fact,  he  had  it  be 
side  him;  the  old  arcade  indeed,  as  his  inner  sense 
listened,  gave  out  the  faint  sound,  as  from  far  off,  of 
the  wild  waving  of  wings.  They  were  folded  now  over 
the  breasts  of  buried  generations ;  but  a  flutter  or  two 
lived  again  in  the  turned  page  of  shock-headed 
slouch-hatted  loiterers  whose  young  intensity  of  type, 
in  the  direction  of  pale  acuteness,  deepened  his  vi 
sion,  and  even  his  appreciation,  of  racial  differences, 
and  whose  manipulation  of  the  uncut  volume  was  too 
often,  however,  but  a  listening  at  closed  doors.  He 
reconstructed  a  possible  groping  Chad  of  three  or  four 
years  before,  a  Chad  who  had,  after  all,  simply  — 
for  that  was  the  only  way  to  see  it  —  been  too  vulgar 
for  his  privilege.  Surely  it  was  a  privilege  to  have  been 
young  and  happy  just  there.  Well,  the  best  thing 
Strether  knew  of  him  was  that  he  had  had  such  a 
dream. 

But  his  own  actual  business  half  an  hour  later  was 
with  a  third  floor  on  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes  —  so 
much  as  that  was  definite;  and  the  fact  of  the  enjoy- 

94 


BOOK  SECOND 

ment  by  the  third-floor  windows  of  a  continuous  bal 
cony,  to  which  he  was  helped  by  this  knowledge,  had 
perhaps  something  to  do  with  his  lingering  for  five 
minutes  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street.  There  were 
points  as  to  which  he  had  quite  made  up  his  mind, 
and  one  of  these  bore  precisely  on  the  wisdom  of  the 
abruptness  to  which  events  had  finally  committed 
him,  a  policy  that  he  was  pleased  to  find  not  at  all 
shaken  as  he  now  looked  at  his  watch  and  wondered. 
He  had  announced  himself —  six  months  before;  had 
written  out  at  least  that  Chad  was  n't  to  be  surprised 
should  he  see  him  some  day  turn  up.  Chad  had  there 
upon,  in  a  few  words  of  rather  carefully  colourless 
answer,  offered  him  a  general  welcome ;  and  Strether, 
ruefully  reflecting  that  he  might  have  understood  the 
warning  as  a  hint  to  hospitality,  a  bid  for  an  invita 
tion,  had  fallen  back  upon  silence  as  the  corrective 
most  to  his  own  taste.  He  had  asked  Mrs.  Newsome 
moreover  not  to  announce  him  again;  he  had  so  dis 
tinct  an  opinion  on  his  attacking  his  job,  should  he 
attack  it  at  all,  in'  his  own  way.  Not  the  least  of  this 
lady's  high  merits  for  him  was  that  he  could  absolutely 
rest  on  her  word.  She  was  the  only  woman  he  had 
known,  even  at  Woollett,  as  to  whom  his  conviction 
was  positive  that  to  lie  was  beyond  her  art.  Sarah 
Pocock,  for  instance,  her  own  daughter,  though  with 
social  ideals,  as  they  said,  in  some  respects  different 
—  Sarah  who  was,  in  her  way,  aesthetic,  had  never 
refused  to  human  commerce  that  mitigation  of  rig 
our;  there  were  occasions  when  he  had  distinctly 
seen  her  apply  it.  Since,  accordingly,  at  all  events,  he 
had  had  it  from  Mrs.  Newsome  that  she  had,  at  what- 

95 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

ever  cost  to  her  more  strenuous  view,  conformed,  in 
the  matter  of  preparing  Chad,  wholly  to  his  restric 
tions,  he  now  looked  up  at  the  fine  continuous  balcony 
with  a  safe  sense  that  if  the  case  had  been  bungled  the 
mistake  was  at  least  his  property.  Was  there  perhaps 
just  a  suspicion  of  that  in  his  present  pause  on  the 
edge  of  the  Boulevard  and  well  in  the  pleasant  light  ? 
Many  things  came  over  him  here,  and  one  of  them 
was  that  he  should  doubtless  presently  know  whether 
he  had  been  shallow  or  sharp.  Another  was  that  the 
balcony  in  question  did  n't  somehow  show  as  a  con 
venience  easy  to  surrender.  Poor  Strether  had  at  this 
very  moment  to  recognise  the  truth  that  wherever  one 
paused  in  Paris  the  imagination  reacted  before  one 
could  stop  it.  This  perpetual  reaction  put  a  price,  if 
one  would,  on  pauses ;  but  it  piled  up  consequences  till 
there  was  scarce  room  to  pick  one's  steps  among  them. 
What  call  had  he,  at  such  a  juncture,  for  example,  to 
like  Chad's  very  house  ?  High  broad  clear  —  he  was 
expert  enough  to  make  out  in  a  moment  that  it  was 
admirably  built  —  it  fairly  embarrassed  our  friend  by 
the  quality  that,  as  he  would  have  said,  it  "sprang" 
on  him.  He  had  struck  off  the  fancy  that  it  might, 
as  a  preliminary,  be  of  service  to  him  to  be  seen,  by 
a  happy  accident,  from  the  third-story  windows,  which 
took  all  the  March  sun,  but  of  what  service  was  it  to 
find  himself  making  out  after  a  moment  that  the 
quality  "sprung,"  the  quality  produced  by  measure 
and  balance,  the  fine  relation  of  part  to  part  and  space 
to  space,  was  probably  —  aided  by  the  presence  of 
ornament  as  positive  as  it  was  discreet,  and  by  the 
complexion  of  the  stone,  a  cold  fair  grey,  warmed  and 


BOOK  SECOND 

polished  a  little  by  life  —  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
case  of  distinction,  such  a  case  as  he  could  only  feel 
unexpectedly  as  a  sort  of  delivered  challenge  ?  Mean 
while,  however,  the  chance  he  had  allowed  for  —  the 
chance  of  being  seen  in  time  from  the  balcony  —  had 
become  a  fact.  Two  or  three  of  the  windows  stood 
open  to  the  violet  air;  and,  before  Strether  had  cut  the 
knot  by  crossing,  a  young  man  had  come  out  and 
looked  about  him,  had  lighted  a  cigarette  and  tossed 
the  match  over,  and  then,  resting  on  the  rail,  had 
given  himself  up  to  watching  the  life  below  while  he 
smoked.  His  arrival  contributed,  in  its  order,  to  keep 
ing  Strether  in  position;  the  result  of  which  in  turn 
was  that  Strether  soon  felt  himself  noticed.  The 
young  man  began  to  look  at  him  as  in  acknowledge 
ment  of  his  being  himself  in  observation. 

This  was  interesting  so  far  as  it  went,  but  the  inter 
est  was  affected  by  the  young  man's  not  being  Chad. 
Strether  wondered  at  first  if  he  were  perhaps  Chad 
altered,  and  then  saw  that  this  was  asking  too  much 
of  alteration.  The  young  man  was  light  bright  and 
alert  —  with  an  air  too  pleasant  to  have  been  arrived 
at  by  patching.  Strether  had  conceived  Chad  as 
patched,  but  not  beyond  recognition.  He  was  in  pre 
sence,  he  felt,  of  amendments  enough  as  they  stood ; 
it  was  a  sufficient  amendment  that  the  gentleman  up 
there  should  be  Chad's  friend.  He  was  young  too 
then,  the  gentleman  up  there  —  he  was  very  young; 
young  enough  apparently  to  be  amused  at  an  elderly 
watcher,  to  be  curious  even  to  see  what  the  elderly 
watcher  would  do  on  finding  himself  watched.  There 
was  youth  in  that,  there  was  youth  in  the  surrender 

97 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

to  the  balcony,  there  was  youth  for  Strether  at  this 
moment  in  everything  but  his  own  business;  and 
Chad's  thus  pronounced  association  with  youth  bad 
given  the  next  instant  an  extraordinary  quick  lift  to 
the  issue.  The  balcony,  the  distinguished  front,  testi 
fied  suddenly,  for  Strether's  fancy,  to  something  that 
was  up  and  up ;  they  placed  the  whole  case  materially, 
and  as  by  an  admirable  image,  on  a  level  that  he 
found  himself  at  the  end  of  another  moment  rejoicing 
to  think  he  might  reach.  The  young  man  looked  at 
him  still,  he  looked  at  the  young  man ;  and  the  issue, 
by  a  rapid  process,  was  that  this  knowledge  of  a 
perched  privacy  appeared  to  him  the  last  of  luxuries. 
To  him  too  the  perched  privacy  was  open,  and  he  saw 
it  now  but  in  one  light  —  that  of  the  only  domicile, 
the  only  fireside,  in  the  great  ironic  city,  on  which  he 
had  the  shadow  of  a  claim.  Miss  Gostrey  had  a  fire 
side  ;  she  had  told  him  of  it,  and  it  was  something  that 
doubtless  awaited  him ;  but  Miss  Gostrey  had  n't  yet 
arrived  —  she  might  n't  arrive  for  days ;  and  the  sole 
attenuation  of  his  excluded  state  was  his  vision  of  the 
small,  the  admittedly  secondary  hotel  in  the  bye-street 
from  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  in  which  her  solicitude  for 
his  purse  had  placed  him,  which  affected  him  some 
how  as  all  indoor  chill,  glass-roofed  court  and  slip 
pery  staircase,  and  which,  by  the  same  token,  ex 
pressed  the  presence  of  Waymarsh  even  at  times  when 
Waymarsh  might  have  been  certain  to  be  round  at  the 
bank.  It  came  to  pass  before  he  moved  that  Way- 
marsh,  and  Waymarsh  alone,  Waymarsh  not  only 
undiluted  but  positively  strengthened,  struck  him  as 
the  present  alternative  to  the  young  man  in  the  bal- 


BOOK  SECOND 

cony.  When  he  did  move  it  was  fairly  to  escape  that 
alternative.  Taking  his  way  over  the  street  at  last 
and  passing  through  the  porte-cochere  of  the  house 
was  like  consciously  leaving  Waymarsh  out.  How 
ever,  he  would  tell  him  all  about  it. 


BOOK  THIRD 


STRETHER  told  Waymarsh  all  about  it  that  very  even 
ing,  on  their  dining  together  at  the  hotel;  which 
need  n't  have  happened,  he  was  all  the  while  aware, 
had  n't  he  chosen  to  sacrifice  to  this  occasion  a  rarer 
opportunity.  The  mention  to  his  companion  of  the 
sacrifice  was  moreover  exactly  what  introduced  his 
recital  —  or,  as  he  would  have  called  it  with  more 
confidence  in  his  interlocutor,  his  confession.  His 
confession  was  that  he  had  been  captured  and  that 
one  of  the  features  of  the  affair  had  just  failed  to  be 
his  engaging  himself  on  the  spot  to  dinner.  As  by  such 
a  freedom  Waymarsh  would  have  lost  him  he  had 
obeyed  his  scruple;  and  he  had  likewise  obeyed  an 
other  scruple  —  which  bore  on  the  question  of  his 
himself  bringing  a  guest. 

Waymarsh  looked  gravely  ardent,  over  the  finished 
soup,  at  this  array  of  scruples;  Strether  had  n't  yet  got 
quite  used  to  being  so  unprepared  for  the  conse 
quences  of  the  impression  he  produced.  It  was  com 
paratively  easy  to  explain,  however,  that  he  had  n't 
felt  sure  his  guest  would  please.  The  person  was  a 
young  man  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  but  that 
afternoon  in  the  course  of  rather  a  hindered  enquiry 
for  another  person  —  an  enquiry  his  new  friend  had 
just  prevented  in  fact  from  being  vain.  "Oh,"  said 
Strether,  "  I  've  all  sorts  of  things  to  tell  you ! "  —  and 
he  put  it  in  a  way  that  was  a  virtual  hint  to  Waymarsh 

103 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

to  help  him  to  enjoy  the  telling.  He  waited  for  his  fish, 
he  drank  of  his  wine,  he  wiped  his  long  moustache,  he 
leaned  back  in  his  chair,  he  took  in  the  two  English 
ladies  who  had  just  creaked  past  them  and  whom  he 
would  even  have  articulately  greeted  if  they  had  n't 
rather  chilled  the  impulse ;  so  that  all  he  could  do  was 
—  by  way  of  doing  something  —  to  say  "  Merci, 
Francois ! "  out  quite  loud  when  his  fish  was  brought. 
Everything  was  there  that  he  wanted,  everything  that 
could  make  the  moment  an  occasion,  that  would  do 
beautifully  —  everything  but  what  Waymarsh  might 
give.  The  little  waxed  salle-a-manger  was  sallow  and 
sociable;  Francois,  dancing  over  it,  all  smiles,  was  a 
man  and  a  brother;  the  high-shouldered  patronne, 
with  her  high-held,  much-rubbed  hands,  seemed  al 
ways  assenting  exuberantly  to  something  unsaid;  the 
Paris  evening  in  short  was,  for  Strether,  in  the  very 
taste  of  the  soup,  in  the  goodness,  as  he  was  inno 
cently  pleased  to  think  it,  of  the  wine,  in  the  pleasant 
coarse  texture  of  the  napkin  and  the  crunch  of  the 
thick-crusted  bread.  These  all  were  things  congruous 
with  his  confession,  and  his  confession  was  that  he 
had  —  it  would  come  out  properly  just  there  if  Way- 
marsh  would  only  take  it  properly  —  agreed  to  break 
fast  out,  at  twelve  literally,  the  next  day.  He  did  n't 
quite  know  where;  the  delicacy  of  the  case  came 
straight  up  in  the  remembrance  of  his  new  friend's 
"We'll  see;  I'll  take  you  somewhere!"  — for  it  had 
required  little  more  than  that,  after  all,  to  let  him  right 
in.  He  was  affected  after  a  minute,  face  to  face  with 
his  actual  comrade,  by  the  impulse  to  overcolour. 
There  had  already  been  things  in  respect  to  which  he 

104 


BOOK  THIRD 

knew  himself  tempted  by  this  perversity.  If  Way- 
marsh  thought  them  bad  he  should  at  least  have  his 
reason  for  his  discomfort;  so  Strether  showed  them 
as  worse.  Still,  he  was  now,  in  his  way,  sincerely 
perplexed. 

Chad  had  been  absent  from  the  Boulevard  Males- 
herbes  —  was  absent  from  Paris  altogether;  he  had 
learned  that  from  the  concierge,  but  had  nevertheless 
gone  up,  and  gone  up  —  there  were  no  two  ways 
about  it  —  from  an  uncontrollable,  a  really,  if  one 
would,  depraved  curiosity.  The  concierge  had  men 
tioned  to  him  that  a  friend  of  the  tenant  of  the 
troisieme  was  for  the  time  in  possession ;  and  this  had 
been  Strether's  pretext  for  a  further  enquiry,  an  ex 
periment  carried  on,  under  Chad's  roof,  without  his 
knowledge.  "  I  found  his  friend  in  fact  there  keeping 
the  place  warm,  as  he  called  it,  for  him;  Chad  himself 
being,  as  appears,  in  the  south.  He  went  a  month  ago 
to  Cannes  and  though  his  return  begins  to  be  looked 
for  it  can't  be  for  some  days.  I  might,  you  see,  per 
fectly  have  waited  a  week;  might  have  beaten  a 
retreat  as  soon  as  I  got  this  essential  knowledge.  But 
I  beat  no  retreat;  I  did  the  opposite;  I  stayed,  I 
dawdled,  I  trifled;  above  all  I  looked  round.  I  saw,  in 
fine;  and  —  I  don't  know  what  to  call  it  —  I  sniffed. 
It 's  a  detail,  but  it 's  as  if  there  were  something  — 
something  very  good  —  to  sniff." 

Waymarsh's  face  had  shown  his  friend  an  attention 
apparently  so  remote  that  the  latter  was  slightly  sur 
prised  to  find  it  at  this  point  abreast  with  him.  "Do 
you  mean  a  smell  ?  What  of  ? " 

"A  charming  scent.   But  I  don't  know." 
105 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Waymarsh  gave  an  inferential  grunt.  "  Does  he  live 
there  with  a  woman  ? " 

"I  don't  know." 

Waymarsh  waited  an  instant  for  more,  then 
resumed.  "Has  he  taken  her  off  with  him  ?" 

"And  will  he  bring  her  back  ?"  —  Strether  fell  into 
the  enquiry.  But  he  wound  it  up  as  before.  "  I  don't 
know." 

The  way  he  wound  it  up,  accompanied  as  this  was 
with  another  drop  back,  another  degustation  of  the 
Leoville,  another  wipe  of  his  moustache  and  another 
good  word  for  Francois,  seemed  to  produce  in  his 
companion  a  slight  irritation.  "Then  what  the  devil 
do  you  know  ? " 

"  Well,"  said  Strether  almost  gaily,  "  I  guess  I  don't 
know  anything!"  His  gaiety  might  have  been  a 
tribute  to  the  fact  that  the  state  he  had  been  reduced 
to  did  for  him  again  what  had  been  done  by  his  talk  of 
the  matter  with  Miss  Gostrey  at  the  London  theatre. 
It  was  somehow  enlarging;  and  the  air  of  that  ampli 
tude  was  now  doubtless  more  or  less  —  and  all  for 
Waymarsh  to  feel  —  in  his  further  response.  "  That 's 
what  I  found  out  from  the  young  man." 

"But  I  thought  you  said  you  found  out  nothing." 

"Nothing  but  that  —  that  I  don't  know  anything." 

"And  what  good  does  that  do  you  ?" 

"It's  just,"  said  Strether,  "what  I've  come  to  you 
to  help  me  to  discover.  I  mean  anything  about  any 
thing  over  here.  I  felt  that,  up  there.  It  regularly  rose 
before  me  in  its  might.  The  young  man  moreover  — 
Chad's  friend  —  as  good  as  told  me  so." 

"As  good  as  told  you  you  know  nothing  about  any- 
106 


BOOK  THIRD 

thing  ? "  Waymarsh  appeared  to  look  at  some  one  who 
might  have  as  good  as  told  him.    "  How  old  is  he  ? " 

"Well,  I  guess  not  thirty." 

"Yet  you  had  to  take  that  from  him  ?" 

"Oh  I  took  a  good  deal  more  —  since,  as  I  tell  you, 
I  took  an  invitation  to  dejeuner." 

"And  are  you  going  to  that  unholy  meal  ?" 

"  If  you  '11  come  with  me.  He  wants  you  too,  you 
know.  I  told  him  about  you.  He  gave  me  his  card," 
Strether  pursued,  "and  his  name's  rather  funny.  It's 
John  Little  Bilham,  and  he  says  his  two  surnames 
are,  on  account  of  his  being  small,  inevitably  used 
together." 

"Well,"  Waymarsh  asked  with  due  detachment 
from  these  details,  "what's  he  doing  up  there  ?" 

"His  account  of  himself  is  that  he's  'only  a  little 
artist-man.'  That  seemed  to  me  perfectly  to  describe 
him.  But  he's  yet  in  the  phase  of  study;  this,  you 
know,  is  the  great  art-school  —  to  pass  a  certain  num 
ber  of  years  in  which  he  came  over.  And  he 's  a  great 
friend  of  Chad's,  and  occupying  Chad's  rooms  just 
now  because  they  're  so  pleasant.  He 's  very  pleasant 
and  curious  too,"  Strether  added  —  "though  he's  not 
from  Boston." 

Waymarsh  looked  already  rather  sick  of  him. 
" Where  is  he  from?" 

Strether  thought.  "I  don't  know  that,  either.  But 
he's  'notoriously,'  as  he  put  it  himself,  not  from 
Boston." 

"Well,"  Waymarsh  moralised  from  dry  depths, 
"  every  one  can't  notoriously  be  from  Boston.  Why," 
he  continued,  "is  he  curious?" 

107 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"Perhaps  just  for  that  —  for  one  thing!  But 
really,"  Strether  added,  "for  everything.  When  you 
meet  him  you'll  see." 

"Oh  I  don't  want  to  meet  him,"  Waymarsh  im 
patiently  growled.  "  Why  don't  he  go  home  ? " 

Strether  hesitated.  "Well,  because  he  likes  it  over 
here." 

This  appeared  in  particular  more  than  Waymarsh 
could  bear.  "He  ought  then  to  be  ashamed  of  him 
self,  and,  as  you  admit  that  you  think  so  too,  why  drag 
him  in?" 

Strether's  reply  again  took  time.  "Perhaps  I  do 
think  so  myself — though  I  don't  quite  yet  admit  it. 
I  'm  not  a  bit  sure  —  it 's  again  one  of  the  things  I 
want  to  find  out.  I  liked  him,  and  can  you  like  peo 
ple  —  ?  But  no  matter."  He  pulled  himself  up. 
"There's  no  doubt  I  want  you  to  come  down  on  me 
and  squash  me." 

Waymarsh  helped  himself  to  the  next  course,  which, 
however,  proving  not  the  dish  he  had  just  noted  as 
supplied  to  the  English  ladies,  had  the  effect  of  caus 
ing  his  imagination  temporarily  to  wander.  But  it 
presently  broke  out  at  a  softer  spot.  "  Have  they  got 
a  handsome  place  up  there  ? " 

"Oh  a  charming  place;  full  of  beautiful  and  valu 
able  things.  I  never  saw  such  a  place "  —  and 
Strether's  thought  went  back  to  it.  "For  a  little 
artist-man  — !"  He  could  in  fact  scarce  express  it. 

But  his  companion,  who  appeared  now  to  have  a 
view,  insisted.  "  Well  ? " 

"Well,  life  can  hold  nothing  better.  Besides, 
they  're  things  of  which  he 's  in  charge." 

108 


BOOK  THIRD 

"So  that  he  does  doorkeeper  for  your  precious  pair  ? 
Can  life,"  Waymarsh  enquired,  "hold  nothing  better 
than  that?"  Then  as  Strether,  silent,  seemed  even 
yet  to  wonder,  "Does  n't  he  know  what  she  is  ?"  he 
went  on. 

"/  don't  know.  I  did  n't  ask  him.  I  could  n't.  It 
was  impossible.  You  would  n't  either.  Besides  I 
did  n't  want  to.  No  more  would  you."  Strether  in 
short  explained  it  at  a  stroke.  "You  can't  make  out 
over  here  what  people  do  know." 

"Then  what  did  you  come  over  for?" 

"Well,  I  suppose  exactly  to  see  for  myself  —  with 
out  their  aid." 

"Then  what  do  you  want  mine  for?" 

"Oh,"  Strether  laughed,  "you're  not  one  of  them! 
I  do  know  what  you  know." 

As,  however,  this  last  assertion  caused  Waymarsh 
again  to  look  at  him  hard  —  such  being  the  latter's 
doubt  of  its  implications  —  he  felt  his  justification 
lame.  Which  was  still  more  the  case  when  Waymarsh 
presently  said :  "  Look  here,  Strether.  Quit  this." 

Our  friend  smiled  with  a  doubt  of  his  own.  "  Do 
you  mean  my  tone  ? " 

"No  —  damn  your  tone.  I  mean  your  nosing 
round.  Quit  the  whole  job.  Let  them  stew  in  their 
juice.  You're  being  used  for  a  thing  you  ain't  fit  for. 
People  don't  take  a  fine-tooth  comb  to  groom  a  horse." 

"Am  I  a  fine-tooth  comb  ?"  Strether  laughed.  "It's 
something  I  never  called  myself!" 

"It's  what  you  are,  all  the  same.  You  ain't  so 
young  as  you  were,  but  you  've  kept  your  teeth." 

He  acknowledged  his  friend's  humour.  "Take  care 
109 


tTHE  AMBASSADORS 

I  don't  get  them  into  you!  You'd  like  them,  my 
friends  at  home,  Waymarsh,"  he  declared;  "you'd 
really  particularly  like  them.  And  I  know  "  —  it  was 
slightly  irrelevant,  but  he  gave  it  sudden  and  singular 
force  —  "I  know  they 'd  like  you ! " 

"Oh  don't  work  them  off  on  me!"  Waymarsh 
groaned. 

Yet  Strether  still  lingered  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets.  "It's  really  quite  as  indispensable  as  I  say 
that  Chad  should  be  got  back." 

"  Indispensable  to  whom  ?  To  you  ? " 

"Yes,"  Strether  presently  said. 

"  Because  if  you  get  him  you  also  get  Mrs.  New- 
some  ? " 

Strether  faced  it.   "Yes." 

"  And  if  you  don't  get  him  you  don't  get  her  ? " 

It  might  be  merciless,  but  he  continued  not  to  flinch. 
"I  think  it  might  have  some  effect  on  our  personal 
understanding.  Chad 's  of  real  importance  —  or  can 
easily  become  so  if  he  will  —  to  the  business." 

"And  the  business  is  of  real  importance  to  his 
mother's  husband  ?" 

"Well,  I  naturally  want  what  my  future  wife  wants. 
And  the  thing  will  be  much  better  if  we  have  our  own 
man  in  it." 

"  If  you  have  your  own  man  in  it,  in  other  words," 
Waymarsh  said,  "you'll  marry  —  you  personally  — 
more  money.  She 's  already  rich,  as  I  understand  you, 
but  she'll  be  richer  still  if  the  business  can  be  made  to 
boom  on  certain  lines  that  you  've  laid  down." 

"/  haven't  laid  them  down,"  Strether  promptly 
returned.  "Mr.  Newsome  —  who  knew  extraordin- 

no 


BOOK  THIRD 

arily  well  what  he  was  about  —  laid  them  down  ten 
years  ago." 

Oh  well,  Waymarsh  seemed  to  indicate  with  a  shake 
of  his  mane,  that  did  n't  matter !  "  You  're  fierce  for 
the  boom  anyway.'* 

His  friend  weighed  a  moment  in  silence  the  justice 
of  the  charge.  "  I  can  scarcely  be  called  fierce,  I  think, 
when  I  so  freely  take  my  chance  of  the  possibility,  the 
danger,  of  being  influenced  in  a  sense  counter  to  Mrs. 
Newsome's  own  feelings." 

Waymarsh  gave  this  proposition  a  long  hard  look. 
"  I  see.  You  're  afraid  yourself  of  being  squared.  But 
you're  a  humbug,"  he  added,  "all  the  same." 

"Oh!"  Strether  quickly  protested. 

"Yes,  you  ask  me  for  protection  —  which  makes 
you  very  interesting;  and  then  you  won't  take  it.  You 
say  you  want  to  be  squashed  — " 

"Ah  but  not  so  easily !  Don't  you  see,"  Strether  de 
manded,  "where  my  interest,  as  already  shown  you, 
lies  ?  It  lies  in  my  not  being  squared.  If  I  'm  squared 
where 's  my  marriage  ?  If  I  miss  my  errand  I  miss 
that ;  and  if  I  miss  that  I  miss  everything  —  I  'm  no 
where." 

Waymarsh  —  but  all  relentlessly  —  took  this  in. 
"  What  do  I  care  where  you  are  if  you  're  spoiled  ? " 

Their  eyes  met  on  it  an  instant.  "Thank  you  aw 
fully,"  Strether  at  last  said.  "  But  don't  you  think 
her  judgement  of  that  —  ? " 

"  Ought  to  content  me  ?  No." 

It  kept  them  again  face  to  face,  and  the  end  of  this 
was  that  Strether  again  laughed.  "You  do  her  in 
justice.  You  really  must  know  her.  Good-night." 

in 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

He  breakfasted  with  Mr.  Bilham  on  the  morrow, 
and,  as  inconsequently  befell,  with  Waymarsh  mass 
ively  of  the  party.  The  latter  announced,  at  the 
eleventh  hour  and  much  to  his  friend's  surprise,  that, 
damn  it,  he  would  as  soon  join  him  as  do  anything 
else ;  on  which  they  proceeded  together,  strolling  in  a 
state  of  detachment  practically  luxurious  for  them 
to  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes,  a  couple  engaged  that 
day  with  the  sharp  spell  of  Paris  as  confessedly,  it 
might  have  been  seen,  as  any  couple  among  the  daily 
thousands  so  compromised.  They  walked,  wandered, 
wondered  and,  a  little,  lost  themselves;  Strether 
had  n't  had  for  years  so  rich  a  consciousness  of  time  — 
a  bag  of  gold  into  which  he  constantly  dipped  for  a 
handful.  It  was  present  to  him  that  when  the  little 
business  with  Mr.  Bilham  should  be  over  he  would 
still  have  shining  hours  to  use  absolutely  as  he  liked. 
There  was  no  great  pulse  of  haste  yet  in  this  process 
of  saving  Chad ;  nor  was  that  effect  a  bit  more  marked 
as  he  sat,  half  an  hour  later,  with  his  legs  under 
Chad's  mahogany,  with  Mr.  Bilham  on  one  side,  with 
a  friend  of  Mr.  Bilham's  on  the  other,  with  Way- 
marsh  stupendously  opposite,  and  with  the  great  hum 
of  Paris  coming  up  in  softness,  vagueness  —  for 
Strether  himself  indeed  already  positive  sweetness  — 
through  the  sunny  windows  toward  which,  the  day 
before,  his  curiosity  had  raised  its  wings  from  below. 
The  feeling  strongest  with  him  at  that  moment  had 
borne  fruit  almost  faster  than  he  could  taste  it,  and 
Strether  literally  felt  at  the  present  hour  that  there  was 
a  precipitation  in  his  fate.  He  had  known  nothing  and 
nobody  as  he  stood  in  the  street;  but  had  n't  his  view 

112 


BOOK  THIRD 

now  taken  a  bound  in  the  direction  of  every  one  and 
of  every  thing  ? 

"  What 's  he  up  to,  what 's  he  up  to  ? "  —  something 
like  that  was  at  the  back  of  his  head  all  the  while  in 
respect  to  little  Bilham ;  but  meanwhile,  till  he  should 
make  out,  every  one  and  every  thing  were  as  good  as 
represented  for  him  by  the  combination  of  his  host  and 
the  lady  on  his  left.  The  lady  on  his  left,  the  lady  thus 
promptly  and  ingeniously  invited  to  "meet"  Mr. 
Strether  and  Mr.  Waymarsh  —  it  was  the  way  she 
herself  expressed  her  case  —  was  a  very  marked  per 
son,  a  person  who  had  much  to  do  with  our  friend's 
asking  himself  if  the  occasion  were  n't  in  its  essence 
the  most  baited,  the  most  gilded  of  traps.  Baited  it 
could  properly  be  called  when  the  repast  was  of  so 
wise  a  savour,  and  gilded  surrounding  objects  seemed 
inevitably  to  need  to  be  when  Miss  Barrace  —  which 
was  the  lady's  name  —  looked  at  them  with  convex 
Parisian  eyes  and  through  a  glass  with  a  remarkably 
long  tortoise-shell  handle.  Why  Miss  Barrace,  ma 
ture  meagre  erect  and  eminently  gay,  highly  adorned, 
perfectly  familiar,  freely  contradictious  and  reminding 
him  of  some  last-century  portrait  of  a  clever  head 
without  powder  —  why  Miss  Barrace  should  have 
been  in  particular  the  note  of  a  "trap"  Strether 
could  n't  on  the  spot  have  explained ;  he  blinked  in  the 
light  of  a  conviction  that  he  should  know  later  on,  and 
know  well  —  as  it  came  over  him,  for  that  matter, 
with  force,  that  he  should  need  to.  He  wondered  what 
he  was  to  think  exactly  of  either  of  his  new  friends ; 
since  the  young  man,  Chad's  intimate  and  deputy, 
had,  in  thus  constituting  the  scene,  practised  so  much 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

more  subtly  than  he  had  been  prepared  for,  and  since 
in  especial  Miss  Barrace,  surrounded  clearly  by  every 
consideration,  had  n't  scrupled  to  figure  as  a  familiar 
object.  It  was  interesting  to  him  to  feel  that  he  was 
in  the  presence  of  new  measures,  other  standards,  a 
different  scale  of  relations,  and  that  evidently  here 
were  a  happy  pair  who  did  n't  think  of  things  at  all  as 
he  and  Waymarsh  thought.  Nothing  was  less  to  have 
been  calculated  in  the  business  than  that  it  should  now 
be  for  him  as  if  he  and  Waymarsh  were  comparatively 
quite  at  one. 

The  latter  was  magnificent  —  this  at  least  was  an 
assurance  privately  given  him  by  Miss  Barrace. 
"  Oh  your  friend 's  a  type,  the  grand  old  American  — 
what  shall  one  call  it  ?  The  Hebrew  prophet,  Ezekiel, 
Jeremiah,  who  used  when  I  was  a  little  girl  in  the  Rue 
Montaigne  to  come  to  see  my  father  and  who  was 
usually  the  American  Minister  to  theTuileries  or  some 
other  court.  I  have  n't  seen  one  these  ever  so  many 
years ;  the  sight  of  it  warms  my  poor  old  chilled  heart ; 
this  specimen  is  wonderful;  in  the  right  quarter,  you 
know,  he  '11  have  a  succes  foil,"  Strether  had  n't  failed 
to  ask  what  the  right  quarter  might  be,  much  as  he 
required  his  presence  of  mind  to  meet  such  a  change 
in  their  scheme.  "Oh  the  artist-quarter  and  that  kind 
of  thing;  here  already,  for  instance,  as  you  see."  He 
had  been  on  the  point  of  echoing  "'Here'  ?  —  is  this 
the  artist-quarter  ? "  but  she  had  already  disposed  of 
the  question  with  a  wave  of  all  her  tortoise-shell  and 
an  easy  "Bring  him  to  me!"  He  knew  on  the  spot  how 
little  he  should  be  able  to  bring  him,  for  the  very  air 
was  by  this  time,  to  his  sense,  thick  and  hot  with 

114 


BOOK  THIRD 

poor  Waymarsh's  judgement  of  it.  He  was  in  the  trap 
still  more  than  his  companion  and,  unlike  his  com 
panion,  not  making  the  best  of  it ;  which  was  precisely 
what  doubtless  gave  him  his  admirable  sombre  glow. 
Little  did  Miss  Barrace  know  that  what  was  behind 
it  was  his  grave  estimate  of  her  own  laxity.  The  gen 
eral  assumption  with  which  our  two  friends  had  ar 
rived  had  been  that  of  finding  Mr.  Bilham  ready  to 
conduct  them  to  one  or  other  of  those  resorts  of  the 
earnest,  the  aesthetic  fraternity  which  were  shown 
among  the  sights  of  Paris.  In  this  character  it  would 
have  justified  them  in  a  proper  insistence  on  discharg 
ing  their  score.  Waymarsh's  only  proviso  at  the  last 
had  been  that  nobody  should  pay  for  him;  but  he 
found  himself,  as  the  occasion  developed,  paid  for  on 
a  scale  as  to  which  Strether  privately  made  out  that 
he  already  nursed  retribution.  Strether  was  conscious 
across  the  table  of  what  worked  in  him,  conscious 
when  they  passed  back  to  the  small  salon  to  which, 
the  previous  evening,  he  himself  had  made  so  rich  a 
reference ;  conscious  most  of  all  as  they  stepped  out 
to  the  balcony  in  which  one  would  have  had  to  be  an 
ogre  not  to  recognise  the  perfect  place  for  easy  after 
tastes.  These  things  were  enhanced  for  Miss  Barrace 
by  a  succession  of  excellent  cigarettes  —  acknow 
ledged,  acclaimed,  as  a  part  of  the  wonderful  supply 
left  behind  him  by  Chad  —  in  an  almost  equal  ab 
sorption  of  which  Strether  found  himself  blindly, 
almost  wildly  pushing  forward.  He  might  perish  by 
the  sword  as  well  as  by  famine,  and  he  knew  that  his 
having  abetted  the  lady  by  an  excess  that  was  rare 
with  him  would  count  for  little  in  the  sum  —  as  Way- 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

marsh  might  so  easily  add  it  up  —  of  her  licence. 
Waymarsh  had  smoked  of  old,  smoked  hugely ;  but 
Waymarsh  did  nothing  now,  and  that  gave  him  his 
advantage  over  people  who  took  things  up  lightly  just 
when  others  had  laid  them  heavily  down.  Strether 
had  never  smoked,  and  he  felt  as  if  he  flaunted  at  his 
friend  that  this  had  been  only  because  of  a  reason. 
The  reason,  it  now  began  to  appear  even  to  himself, 
was  that  he  had  never  had  a  lady  to  smoke  with. 

It  was  this  lady's  being  there  at  all,  however,  that 
was  the  strange  free  thing;  perhaps,  since  she  was 
there,  her  smoking  was  the  least  of  her  freedoms.  If 
Strether  had  been  sure  at  each  juncture  of  what  — 
with  Bilham  in  especial  —  she  talked  about,  he  might 
have  traced  others  and  winced  at  them  and  felt  Way- 
marsh  wince;  but  he  was  in  fact  so  often  at  sea  that  his 
sense  of  the  range  of  reference  was  merely  general  and 
that  he  on  several  different  occasions  guessed  and  inter 
preted  only  to  doubt.  He  wondered  what  they  meant, 
but  there  were  things  he  scarce  thought  they  could  be 
supposed  to  mean,  and  "Oh  no  —  not  that!"  was  at 
the  end  of  most  of  his  ventures.  This  was  the  very  be 
ginning  with  him  of  a  condition  as  to  which,  later  on, 
it  will  be  seen,  he  found  cause  to  pull  himself  up ;  and 
he  was  to  remember  the  moment  duly  as  the  first  step 
in  a  process.  The  central  fact  of  the  place  was  neither 
more  nor  less,  when  analysed  —  and  a  pressure  super 
ficial  sufficed  —  than  the  fundamental  impropriety 
of  Chad's  situation,  round  about  which  they  thus 
seemed  cynically  clustered.  Accordingly,  since  they 
took  it  for  granted,  they  took  for  granted  all  that  was 
in  connexion  with  it  taken  for  granted  at  Woollett  — 

116 


BOOK  THIRD 

matters  as  to  which,  verily,  he  had  been  reduced  with 
Mrs.  Newsome  to  the  last  intensity  of  silence.  That 
was  the  consequence  of  their  being  too  bad  to  be 
talked  about,  and  was  the  accompaniment,  by  the 
same  token,  of  a  deep  conception  of  their  badness. 
It  befell  therefore  that  when  poor  Strether  put  it  to 
himself  that  their  badness  was  ultimately,  or  perhaps 
even  insolently,  what  such  a  scene  as  the  one  before 
him  was,  so  to  speak,  built  upon,  he  could  scarce 
shirk  the  dilemma  of  reading  a  roundabout  echo  of 
them  into  almost  anything  that  came  up.  This,  he  was 
well  aware,  was  a  dreadful  necessity;  but  such  was  the 
stern  logic,  he  could  only  gather,  of  a  relation  to 
the  irregular  life. 

It  was  the  way  the  irregular  life  sat  upon  Bilham 
and  Miss  Barrace  that  was  the  insidious,  the  delicate 
marvel.  He  was  eager  to  concede  that  their  relation 
to  it  was  all  indirect,  for  anything  else  in  him  would 
have  shown  the  grossness  of  bad  manners;  but  the 
indirectness  was  none  the  less  consonant  —  that  was 
striking  —  with  a  grateful  enjoyment  of  everything 
that  was  Chad's.  They  spoke  of  him  repeatedly,  in 
voking  his  good  name  and  good  nature,  and  the  worst 
confusion  of  mind  for  Strether  was  that  all  their 
mention  of  him  was  of  a  kind  to  do  him  honour.  They 
commended  his  munificence  and  approved  his  taste, 
and  in  doing  so  sat  down,  as  it  seemed  to  Strether,  in 
the  very  soil  out  of  which  these  things  flowered.  Our 
friend's  final  predicament  was  that  he  himself  was 
sitting  down,  for  the  time,  with  them,  and  there  was 
a  supreme  moment  at  which,  compared  with  his  col 
lapse,  Waymarsh's  erectness  affected  him  as  really 

117 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

high.  One  thing  was  certain  —  he  saw  he  must  make 
up  his  mind.  He  must  approach  Chad,  must  wait  for 
him,  deal  with  him,  master  him,  but  he  must  n't  dis 
possess  himself  of  the  faculty  of  seeing  things  as  they 
were.  He  must  bring  him  to  him  —  not  go  himself, 
as  it  were,  so  much  of  the  way.  He  must  at  any  rate 
be  clearer  as  to  what  —  should  he  continue  to  do  that 
for  convenience  —  he  was  still  condoning.  It  was  on 
the  detail  of  this  quantity  —  and  what  could  the  fact 
be  but  mystifying.? — that  Bilham  and  Miss  Barrace 
threw  so  little  light.  So  there  they  were. 


II 


WHEN  Miss  Gostrey  arrived,  at  the  end  of  a  week,  she 
made  him  a  sign;  he  went  immediately  to  see  her, 
and  it  was  n't  till  then  that  he  could  again  close  his 
grasp  on  the  idea  of  a  corrective.  This  idea  however 
was  luckily  all  before  him  again  from  the  moment  he 
crossed  the  threshold  of  the  little  entresol  of  the  Quar- 
tier  Marboeuf  into  which  she  had  gathered,  as  she  said, 
picking  them  up  in  a  thousand  flights  and  funny  little 
passionate  pounces,  the  makings  of  a  final  nest.  He 
recognised  in  an  instant  that  there  really,  there  only, 
he  should  find  the  boon  with  the  vision  of  which  he 
had  first  mounted  Chad's  stairs.  He  might  have  been 
a  little  scared  at  the  picture  of  how  much  more,  in  this 
place,  he  should  know  himself  "in"  had  n't  his  friend 
been  on  the  spot  to  measure  the  amount  to  his  ap 
petite.  Her  compact  and  crowded  little  chambers, 
almost  dusky,  as  they  at  first^,  struck  him,  with  accu 
mulations,  represented  a  supreme  general  adjustment 
to  opportunities  and  conditions.  Wherever  he  looked 
he  saw  an  old  ivory  or  an  old  brocade,  and  he  scarce 
knew  where  to  sit  for  fear  of  a  misappliance.  The 
life  of  the  occupant  struck  him  of  a  sudden  as  more 
charged  with  possession  even  than  Chad's  or  than 
Miss  Barrace's;  wide  as  his  glimpse  had  lately  be 
come  of  the  empire  of  "  things,"  what  was  before  him 
still  enlarged  it ;  the  lust  of  the  eyes  and  the  pride  of 
life  had  indeed  thus  their  temple.  It  was  the  inner- 

119 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

most  nook  of  the  shrine  —  as  brown  as  a  pirate's 
cave.  In  the  brownness  were  glints  of  gold ;  patches 
of  purple  were  in  the  gloom;  objects  all  that  caught, 
through  the  muslin,  with  their  high  rarity,  the  light 
of  the  low  windows.  Nothing  was  clear  about  them 
but  that  they  were  precious,  and  they  brushed  his 
ignorance  with  their  contempt  as  a  flower,  in  a  liberty 
taken  with  him,  might  have  been  whisked  under  his 
nose.  But  after  a  full  look  at  his  hostess  he  knew  none 
the  less  what  most  concerned  him.  The  circle  in 
which  they  stood  together  was  warm  with  life,  and 
every  question  between  them  would  live  there  as  no 
where  else.  A  question  came  up  as  soon  as  they  had 
spoken,  for  his  answer,  with  a  laugh,  was  quickly: 
"  Well,  they  've  got  hold  of  me ! "  Much  of  their  talk 
on  this  first  occasion  was  his  development  of  that 
truth.  He  was  extraordinarily  glad  to  see  her,  ex 
pressing  to  her  frankly  what  she  most  showed  him, 
that  one  might  live  for  years  without  a  blessing  un 
suspected,  but  that  to  know  it  at  last  for  no  more  than 
three  days  was  to  need  it  or  miss  it  for  ever.  She  was 
the  blessing  that  had  now  become  his  need,  and  what 
could  prove  it  better  than  that  without  her  he  had 
lost  himself? 

"What  do  you  mean  ?"  she  asked  with  an  absence 
of  alarm  that,  correcting  him  as  if  he  had  mistaken 
the  "  period  "  of  one  of  her  pieces,  gave  him  afresh  a 
sense  of  her  easy  movement  through  the  maze  he  had 
but  begun  to  tread.  "What  in  the  name  of  all  the 
Pococks  have  you  managed  to  do  ? " 

"  Why  exactly  the  wrong  thing.  I  Ve  made  a  frantic 
friend  of  little  Bilham." 

120 


BOOK  THIRD 

"Ah  that  sort  of  thing  was  of  the  essence  of  your  case 
and  to  have  been  allowed  for  from  the  first."  And  it 
was  only  after  this  that,  quite  as  a  minor  matter,  she 
asked  who  in  the  world  little  Bilham  might  be.  When 
she  learned  that  he  was  a  friend  of  Chad's  and  living 
for  the  time  in  Chad's  rooms  in  Chad's  absence,  quite 
as  if  acting  in  Chad's  spirit  and  serving  Chad's  cause, 
she  showed,  however,  more  interest.  "Should  you 
mind  my  seeing  him  ?  Only  once,  you  know,"  she 
added. 

"Oh  the  oftener  the  better:  he's  amusing  —  he's 
original." 

"  He  does  n't  shock  you  ? "  Miss  Gostrey  threw  out. 

"Never  in  the  world!  We  escape  that  with  a  per 
fection — !  I  feel  it  to  be  largely,  no  doubt,  because 
I  don't  half-understand  him;  but  our  modus  vivendi 
is  n't  spoiled  even  by  that.  You  must  dine  with  me  to 
meet  him,"  Strether  went  on.  "Then  you'll  see." 

"Are  you  giving  dinners?" 

"Yes  —  there  I  am.   That's  what  I  mean." 

All  her  kindness  wondered.  "That  you  're  spending 
too  much  money  ? " 

"  Dear  no  —  they  seem  to  cost  so  little.  But  that 
I  do  it  to  them.  I  ought  to  hold  off." 

She  thought  again  —  she  laughed.  "The  money 
you  must  be  spending  to  think  it  cheap !  But  I  must 
be  out  of  it  —  to  the  naked  eye." 

He  looked  for  a  moment  as  if  she  were  really  failing 
him.  "Then  you  won't  meet  them  ?"  It  was  almost 
as  if  she  had  developed  an  unexpected  personal  prud 
ence. 

She  hesitated.   "Who  are  they  —  first  ?" 
121 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"Why  little  Bilham  to  begin  with."  He  kept  back 
for  the  moment  Miss  Barrace.  "And  Chad  —  when 
he  comes  —  you  must  absolutely  see." 

"When  then  does  he  come?" 

"When  Bilham  has  had  time  to  write  him,  and 
hear  from  him,  about  me.  Bilham,  however,"  he  pur 
sued,  "will  report  favourably  —  favourably  for  Chad. 
That  will  make  him  not  afraid  to  come.  I  want  you 
the  more  therefore,  you  see,  for  my  bluff." 

"Oh  you'll  do  yourself  for  your  bluff."  She  was 
perfectly  easy.  "At  the  rate  you  've  gone  I 'm  quiet." 

"Ah  but  I  haven't,"  said  Strether,  "made  one 
protest." 

She  turned  it  over.  "  Have  n't  you  been  seeing  what 
there 's  to  protest  about  ? " 

He  let  her,  with  this,  however  ruefully,  have  the 
whole  truth.  "I  haven't  yet  found  a  single  thing." 

"Is  n't  there  any  one  with  him  then  ?" 

"Of  the  sort  I  came  out  about?"  Strether  took 
a  moment.  "How  do  I  know?  And  what  do  I 
care?" 

"Oh  oh!" — and  her  laughter  spread.  He  was 
struck  in  fact  by  the  effect  on  her  of  his  joke.  He  saw 
now  how  he  meant  it  as  a  joke.  She  saw,  however, 
still  other  things,  though  in  an  instant  she  had  hidden 
them.  "You've  got  at  no  facts  at  all  ?" 

He  tried  to  muster  them.  "Well,  he  has  a  lovely 
home." 

"Ah  that,  in  Paris,"  she  quickly  returned,  "proves 
nothing.  That  is  rather  it  disproves  nothing.  They 
may  very  well,  you  see,  the  people  your  mission  is 
concerned  with,  have  done  it  for  him." 

122 


BOOK  THIRD 

"  Exactly.  And  it  was  on  the  scene  of  their  doings 
then  that  Waymarsh  and  I  sat  guzzling.'* 

"Oh  if  you  forbore  to  guzzle  here  on  scenes  of  do 
ings,"  she  replied,  "you  might  easily  die  of  starva 
tion."  With  which  she  smiled  at  him.  "You've 
worse  before  you." 

"Ah  I've  everything  before  me.  But  on  our  hypo 
thesis,  you  know,  they  must  be  wonderful." 

"They  are!"  said  Miss  Gostrey.  "You're  not 
therefore,  you  see,"  she  added,  "wholly  without  facts. 
They've  been,  in  effect,  wonderful." 

To  have  got  at  something  comparatively  definite 
appeared  at  last  a  little  to  help  —  a  wave  by  which 
moreover,  the  next  moment,  recollection  was  washed. 
"  My  young  man  does  admit  furthermore  that  they  're 
our  friend's  great  interest." 

"  Is  that  the  expression  he  uses  ? " 

Strether  more  exactly  recalled.  "No  —  not  quite." 

"  Something  more  vivid  ?  Less  ? " 

He  had  bent,  with  neared  glasses,  over  a  group  of 
articles  on  a  small  stand;  and  at  this  he  came  up. 
"  It  was  a  mere  allusion,  but,  on  the  lookout  as  I  was, 
it  struck  me.  'Awful,  you  know,  as  Chad  is '  —  those 
were  Bilham's  words." 

" '  Awful,  you  know '  —  ?  Oh ! "  —  and  Miss  Gos 
trey  turned  them  over.  She  seemed,  however,  satis 
fied.  "Well,  what  more  do  you  want  ?" 

He  glanced  once  more  at  a  bibelot  or  two,  and  every 
thing  sent  him  back.  "  But  it  is  all  the  same  as  if  they 
wished  to  let  me  have  it  between  the  eyes." 

She  wondered.   "Quoi  done  ?" 

"Why  what  I  speak  of.  The  amenity.  They 
123 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

can  stun  you  with  that  as  well  as  with  anything 
else." 

"Oh,"  she  answered,  "you '11  come  round !  I  must 
see  them  each,"  she  went  on,  "for  myself.  I  mean 
Mr.  Bilham  and  Mr.  Newsome  —  Mr.  Bilham  natur 
ally  first.  Once  only  —  once  for  each ;  that  will  do. 
But  face  to  face  —  for  half  an  hour.  What 's  Mr. 
Chad,"  she  immediately  pursued,  "doing  at  Cannes  ? 
Decent  men  don't  go  to  Cannes  with  the  —  well,  with 
the  kind  of  ladies  you  mean." 

"  Don't  they  ? "  Strether  asked  with  an  interest  in 
decent  men  that  amused  her. 

"No;  elsewhere,  but  not  to  Cannes.  Cannes  is 
different.  Cannes  is  better.  Cannes  is  best.  I  mean 
it 's  all  people  you  know  —  when  you  do  know  them. 
And  if  he  does,  why  that's  different  too.  He  must 
have  gone  alone.  She  can't  be  with  him." 

"  I  have  n't,"  Strether  confessed  in  his  weakness, 
"  the  least  idea."  There  seemed  much  in  what  she  said, 
but  he  was  able  after  a  little  to  help  her  to  a  nearer 
impression.  The  meeting  with  little  Bilham  took 
place,  by  easy  arrangement,  in  the  great  gallery  of 
the  Louvre;  and  when,  standing  with  his  fellow 
visitor  before  one  of  the  splendid  Titians  > —  the  over 
whelming  portrait  of  the  young  man  with  the  strangely- 
shaped  glove  and  the  blue-grey  eyes  —  he  turned  to 
see  the  third  member  of  their  party  advance  from  the 
end  of  the  waxed  and  gilded  vista,  he  had  a  sense  of 
having  at  last  taken  hold.  He  had  agreed  with  Miss 
Gostrey  —  it  dated  even  from  Chester  —  for  a  morn 
ing  at  the  Louvre,  and  he  had  embraced  independ 
ently  the  same  idea  as  thrown  out  by  little  Bilham, 

124 


BOOK  THIRD 

whom  he  had  already  accompanied  to  the  museum 
of  the  Luxembourg.  The  fusion  of  these  schemes 
presented  no  difficulty,  and  it  was  to  strike  him  again 
that  in  little  Bilham's  company  contrarieties  in  gen 
eral  dropped. 

"Oh  he's  all  right  —  he's  one  of  us!"  Miss  Gos- 
trey,  after  the  first  exchange,  soon  found  a  chance  to 
murmur  to  her  companion;  and  Strether,  as  they 
proceeded  and  paused  and  while  a  quick  unanimity 
between  the  two  appeared  to  have  phrased  itself  in 
half  a  dozen  remarks  —  Strether  knew  that  he  knew 
almost  immediately  what  she  meant,  and  took  it  as 
still  another  sign  that  he  had  got  his  job  in  hand.  This 
was  the  more  grateful  to  him  that  he  could  think  of 
the  intelligence  now  serving  him  as  an  acquisition  pos 
itively  new.  He  would  n't  have  known  even  the  day 
before  what  she  meant  —  that  is  if  she  meant,  what 
he  assumed,  that  they  were  intense  Americans  to 
gether.  He  had  just  worked  round  —  and  with  a 
sharper  turn  of  the  screw  than  any  yet  —  to  the  con 
ception  of  an  American  intense  as  little  Bilham  was 
intense.  The  young  man  was  his  first  specimen;  the 
specimen  had  profoundly  perplexed  him;  at  present 
however  there  was  light.  It  was  by  little  Bilham's 
amazing  serenity  that  he  had  at  first  been  affected, 
but  he  had  inevitably,  in  his  circumspection,  felt  it  as 
the  trail  of  the  serpent,  the  corruption,  as  he  might 
conveniently  have  said,  of  Europe;  whereas  the 
promptness  with  which  it  came  up  for  Miss  Gostrey 
but  as  a  special  little  form  of  the  oldest  thing  they 
knew  justified  it  at  once  to  his  own  vision  as  well.  He 
wanted  to  be  able  to  like  his  specimen  with  a  clear 

125 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

good  conscience,  and  this  fully  permitted  it.  What 
had  muddled  him  was  precisely  the  small  artist- 
man's  way  —  it  was  so  complete  —  of  being  more 
American  than  anybody.  But  it  now  for  the  time 
put  Strether  vastly  at  his  ease  to  have  this  view  of  a 
new  way. 

The  amiable  youth  then  looked  out,  as  it  had  first 
struck  Strether,  at  a  world  in  respect  to  which  he 
had  n't  a  prejudice.  The  one  our  friend  most  instantly 
missed  was  the  usual  one  in  favour  of  an  occupation 
accepted.  Little  Bilham  had  an  occupation,  but  it  was 
only  an  occupation  declined ;  and  it  was  by  his  general 
exemption  from  alarm,  anxiety  or  remorse  on  this 
score  that  the  impression  of  his  serenity  was  made. 
He  had  come  out  to  Paris  to  paint  —  to  fathom,  that 
is,  at  large,  that  mystery;  but  study  had  been  fatal  to 
him  so  far  as  anything  could  be  fatal,  and  his  product 
ive  power  faltered  in  proportion  as  his  knowledge 
grew.  Strether  had  gathered  from  him  that  at  the  mo 
ment  of  his  finding  him  in  Chad's  rooms  he  had  n't 
saved  from  his  shipwreck  a  scrap  of  anything  but  his 
beautiful  intelligence  and  his  confirmed  habit  of 
Paris.  He  referred  to  these  things  with  an  equal  fond 
familiarity,  and  it  was  sufficiently  clear  that,  as  an 
outfit,  they  still  served  him.  They  were  charming  to 
Strether  through  the  hour  spent  at  the  Louvre,  where 
indeed  they  figured  for  him  as  an  unseparated  part  of 
the  charged  iridescent  air,  the  glamour  of  the  name, 
the  splendour  of  the  space,  the  colour  of  the  masters. 
Yet  they  were  present  too  wherever  the  young  man 
led,  and  the  day  after  the  visit  to  the  Louvre  they 
hung,  in  a  different  walk,  about  the  steps  of  our  party. 

126 


BOOK  THIRD 

He  had  invited  his  companions  to  cross  the  river  with 
him,  offering  to  show  them  his  own  poor  place;  and 
his  own  poor  place,  which  was  very  poor,  gave  to  his 
idiosyncrasies,  for  Strether  —  the  small  sublime  indif 
ferences  and  independences  that  had  struck  the  latter 
as  fresh  —  an  odd  and  engaging  dignity.  He  lived  at 
the  end  of  an  alley  that  went  out  of  an  old  short  cob 
bled  street,  a  street  that  went  in  turn  out  of  a  new  long 
smooth  avenue  —  street  and  avenue  and  alley  having, 
however,  in  common  a  sort  of  social  shabbiness;  and 
he  introduced  them  to  the  rather  cold  and  blank  little 
studio  which  he  had  lent  to  a  comrade  for  the  term  of 
his  elegant  absence.  The  comrade  was  another  in 
genuous  compatriot,  to  whom  he  had  wired  that  tea 
was  to  await  them  "regardless,"  and  this  reckless 
repast,  and  the  second  ingenuous  compatriot,  and  the 
faraway  makeshift  life,  with  its  jokes  and  its  gaps,  its 
delicate  daubs  and  its  three  or  four  chairs,  its  overflow 
of  taste  and  conviction  and  its  lack  of  nearly  all  else  — 
these  things  wove  round  the  occasion  a  spell  to  which 
our  hero  unreservedly  surrendered. 

He  liked  the  ingenuous  compatriots  —  for  two  or 
three  others  soon  gathered ;  he  liked  the  delicate  daubs 
and  the  free  discriminations  —  involving  references 
indeed,  involving  enthusiasms  and  execrations  that 
made  him,  as  they  said,  sit  up;  he  liked  above  all  the 
legend  of  good-humoured  poverty,  of  mutual  accom 
modation  fairly  raised  to  the  romantic,  that  he  soon 
read  into  the  scene.  The  ingenuous  compatriots 
showed  a  candour,  he  thought,  surpassing  even  the 
candour  of  Woollett ;  they  were  red-haired  and  long- 
legged,  they  were  quaint  and  queer  and  dear  and 

127 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

droll ;  they  made  the  place  resound  with  the  vernacu 
lar,  which  he  had  never  known  so  marked  as  when 
figuring  for  the  chosen  language,  he  must  suppose,  of 
contemporary  art.  They  twanged  with  a  vengeance 
the  aesthetic  lyre  —  they  drew  from  it  wonderful  airs. 
This  aspect  of  their  life  had  an  admirable  innocence; 
and  he  looked  on  occasion  at  Maria  Gostrey  to  see  to 
what  extent  that  element  reached  her.  She  gave  him 
however  for  the  hour,  as  she  had  given  him  the  pre 
vious  day,  no  further  sign  than  to  show  how  she  dealt 
with  boys;  meeting  them  with  the  air  of  old  Parisian 
practice  that  she  had  for  every  one,  for  everything,  in 
turn.  Wonderful  about  the  delicate  daubs,  masterful 
about  the  way  to  make  tea,  trustful  about  the  legs  of 
chairs  and  familiarly  reminiscent  of  those,  in  the  other 
time,  the  named,  the  numbered  or  the  caricatured, 
who  had  flourished  or  failed,  disappeared  or  arrived, 
she  had  accepted  with  the  best  grace  her  second  course 
of  little  Bilham,  and  had  said  to  Strether,  the  previous 
afternoon,  on  his  leaving  them,  that,  since  her  impres 
sion  was  to  be  renewed,  she  would  reserve  judgement 
till  after  the  new  evidence. 

The  new  evidence  was  to  come,  as  it  proved,  in  a 
day  or  two.  He  soon  had  from  Maria  a  message  to  the 
effect  that  an  excellent  box  at  the  Francais  had  been 
lent  her  for  the  following  night;  it  seeming  on  such 
occasions  not  the  least  of  her  merits  that  she  was  sub 
ject  to  such  approaches.  The  sense  of  how  she  was 
always  paying  for  something  in  advance  was  equalled 
on  Strether' s  part  only  by  the  sense  of  how  she  was 
always  being  paid;  all  of  which  made  for  his  con 
sciousness,  in  the  larger  air,  of  a  lively  bustling  traffic, 

128 


BOOK  THIRD 

the  exchange  of  such  values  as  were  not  for  him  to 
handle.  She  hated,  he  knew,  at  the  French  play,  any 
thing  but  a  box  —  just  as  she  hated  at  the  English 
anything  but  a  stall;  and  a  box  was  what  he  was 
already  in  this  phase  girding  himself  to  press  upon 
her.  But  she  had  for  that  matter  her  community  with 
little  Bilham:  she  too  always,  on  the  great  issues, 
showed  as  having  known  in  time.  It  made  her  con 
stantly  beforehand  with  him  and  gave  him  mainly  the 
chance  to  ask  himself  how  on  the  day  of  their  settle 
ment  their  account  would  stand.  He  endeavoured 
even  now  to  keep  it  a  little  straight  by  arranging  that 
if  he  accepted  her  invitation  she  should  dine  with  him 
first;  but  the  upshot  of  this  scruple  was  that  at  eight 
o'clock  on  the  morrow  he  awaited  her  with  Waymarsh 
under  the  pillared  portico.  She  had  n't  dined  with 
him,  and  it  was  characteristic  of  their  relation  that  she 
had  made  him  embrace  her  refusal  without  in  the 
least  understanding  it.  She  ever  caused  her  rearrange 
ments  to  affect  him  as  her  tenderest  touches.  It  was 
on  that  principle  for  instance  that,  giving  him  the  op 
portunity  to  be  amiable  again  to  little  Bilham,  she  had 
suggested  his  offering  the  young  man  a  seat  in  their 
box.  Strether  had  dispatched  for  this  purpose  a  small 
blue  missive  to  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes,  but  up  to 
the  moment  of  their  passing  into  the  theatre  he  had 
received  no  response  to  his  message.  He  held,  how 
ever,  even  after  they  had  been  for  some  time  con 
veniently  seated,  that  their  friend,  who  knew  his  way 
about,  would  come  in  at  his  own  right  moment.  His 
temporary  absence  moreover  seemed,  as  never  yet,  to 
make  the  right  moment  for  Miss  Gostrey.  Strether 

129 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

had  been  waiting  till  to-night  to  get  back  from  her  in 
some  mirrored  form  her  impressions  and  conclusions. 
She  had  elected,  as  they  said,  to  see  little  Bilham 
once ;  but  now  she  had  seen  him  twice  and  had  never 
theless  not  said  more  than  a  word. 

Waymarsh  meanwhile  sat  opposite  him  with  their 
hostess  between;  and  Miss  Gostrey  spoke  of  herself 
as  an  instructor  of  youth  introducing  her  little  charges 
to  a  work  that  was  one  of  the  glories  of  literature.  The 
glory  was  happily  unobjectionable,  and  the  little 
charges  were  candid;  for  herself  she  had  travelled  that 
road  and  she  merely  waited  on  their  innocence.  But 
she  referred  in  due  time  to  their  absent  friend,  whom 
it  was  clear  they  should  have  to  give  up.  "  He  either 
won't  have  got  your  note,"  she  said,  "or  you  won't 
have  got  his :  he  has  had  some  kind  of  hindrance,  and, 
of  course,  for  that  matter,  you  know,  a  man  never 
writes  about  coming  to  a  box."  She  spoke  as  if,  with 
her  look,  it  might  have  been  Waymarsh  who  had 
written  to  the  youth,  and  the  latter's  face  showed  a 
mixture  of  austerity  and  anguish.  She  went  on  how 
ever  as  if  to  meet  this.  "He's  far  and  away,  you 
know,  the  best  of  them." 

"The  best  of  whom,  ma'am  ?" 

"Why  of  all  the  long  procession  —  the  boys,  the 
girls,  or  the  old  men  and  old  women  as  they  sometimes 
really  are ;  the  hope,  as  one  may  say,  of  our  country. 
They  've  all  passed,  year  after  year;  but  there  has  been 
no  one  in  particular  I  've  ever  wanted  to  stop.  I  feel  — 
don't  you?  —  that  I  want  to  stop  little  Bilham;  he's 
so  exactly  right  as  he  is."  She  continued  to  talk  to 
Waymarsh.  "  He 's  too  delightful.  If  he  '11  only  not 

130 


BOOK  THIRD 

spoil  it!  But  they  always  will;  they  always  do;  they 
always  have." 

"I  don't  think  Waymarsh  knows,"  Strether  said 
after  a  moment,  "quite  what  it's  open  to  Bilham  to 
spoil." 

"It  can't  be  a  good  American,"  Waymarsh  lucidly 
enough  replied ;  "  for  it  did  n't  strike  me  the  young 
man  had  developed  much  in  that  shape." 

"Ah,"  Miss  Gostrey  sighed,  "the  name  of  the  good 
American  is  as  easily  given  as  taken  away !  What  is  it, 
to  begin  with,  to  be  one,  and  what 's  the  extraordinary 
hurry  ?  Surely  nothing  that 's  so  pressing  was  ever  so 
little  defined.  It's  such  an  order,  really,  that  before 
we  cook  you  the  dish  we  must  at  least  have  your 
receipt.  Besides,  the  poor  chicks  have  time!  What 
I  Ve  seen  so  often  spoiled,"  she  pursued,  "  is  the  happy 
attitude  itself,  the  state  of  faith  and  —  what  shall  I 
call  it  ?  —  the  sense  of  beauty.  You  're  right  about 
him"  —  she  now  took  in  Strether;  "little  Bilham  has 
them  to  a  charm ;  we  must  keep  little  Bilham  along." 
Then  she  was  all  again  for  Waymarsh.  "The  others 
have  all  wanted  so  dreadfully  to  do  something,  and 
they've  gone  and  done  it  in  too  many  cases  indeed.  It 
leaves  them  never  the  same  afterwards;  the  charm's 
always  somehow  broken.  Now  be,  I  think,  you  know, 
really  won't.  He  won't  do  the  least  dreadful  little 
thing.  We  shall  continue  to  enjoy  him  just  as  he  is. 
No  —  he 's  quite  beautiful.  He  sees  everything.  He 
is  n't  a  bit  ashamed.  He  has  every  scrap  of  the  cour 
age  of  it  that  one  could  ask.  Only  think  what  he  might 
do.  One  wants  really  —  for  fear  of  some  accident  — 
to  keep  him  in  view.  At  this  very  moment  perhaps 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

• 

what  may  n't  he  be  up  to  ?  I  Ve  had  my  disappoint 
ments  —  the  poor  things  are  never  really  safe ;  or  only 
at  least  when  you  have  them  under  your  eye.  One 
can  never  completely  trust  them.  One 's  uneasy,  and 
I  think  that's  why  I  most  miss  him  now." 

She  had  wound  up  with  a  laugh  of  enjoyment  over  her 
embroidery  of  her  idea  —  an  enjoyment  that  her  face 
communicated  to  Strether,  who  almost  wished  none 
the  less  at  this  moment  that  she  would  let  poor  Way- 
marsh  alone.  He  knew  more  or  less  what  she  meant ; 
but  the  fact  was  n't  a  reason  for  her  not  pretending  to 
Waymarsh  that  he  did  n't.  It  was  craven  of  him  per 
haps,  but  he  would,  for  the  high  amenity  of  the  occa 
sion,  have  liked  Waymarsh  not  to  be  so  sure  of  his  wit. 
Her  recognition  of  it  gave  him  away  and,  before  she 
had  done  with  him  or  with  that  article,  would  give  him 
worse.  What  was  he,  all  the  same,  to  do  ?  He  looked 
across  the  box  at  his  friend ;  their  eyes  met ;  something 
queer  and  stiff,  something  that  bore  on  the  situation 
but  that  it  was  better  not  to  touch,  passed  in  silence 
between  them.  Well,  the  effect  of  it  for  Strether  was 
an  abrupt  reaction,  a  final  impatience  of  his  own 
tendency  to  temporise.  Where  was  that  taking  him 
anyway  ?  It  was  one  of  the  quiet  instants  that  some 
times  settle  more  matters  than  the  outbreaks  dear  to 
the  historic  muse.  The  only  qualification  of  the  quiet 
ness  was  the  synthetic  "Oh  hang  it!"  into  which 
Strether's  share  of  the  silence  soundlessly  flowered. 
It  represented,  this  mute  ejaculation,  a  final  impulse 
to  burn  his  ships.  These  ships,  to  the  historic  muse, 
may  seem  of  course  mere  cockles,  but  when  he  pre 
sently  spoke  to  Miss  Gostrey  it  was  with  the  sense  at 

132 


BOOK  THIRD 

least  of  applying  the  torch.  "Is  it  then  a  conspir 
acy?" 

"  Between  the  two  young  men  ?  Well,  I  don't  pre 
tend  to  be  a  seer  or  a  prophetess,"  she  presently 
replied ;  "  but  if  I  'm  simply  a  woman  of  sense  he 's 
working  for  you  to-night.  I  don't  quite  know  how  — 
but  it 's  in  my  bones."  And  she  looked  at  him  at  last 
as  if,  little  material  as  she  yet  gave  him,  he'd  really 
understand.  "  For  an  opinion  that 's  my  opinion.  He 
makes  you  out  too  well  not  to." 

"Not  to  work  for  me  to-night?"  Strether  won 
dered.  "Then  I  hope  he  isn't  doing  anything  very 
bad." 

"They've  got  you,"  she  portentously  answered. 

"  Do  you  mean  he  is  —  ? " 

"They've  got  you,"  she  merely  repeated.  Though 
she  disclaimed  the  prophetic  vision  she  was  at  this 
instant  the  nearest  approach  he  had  ever  met  to  the 
priestess  of  the  oracle.  The  light  was  in  her  eyes. 
"You  must  face  it  now." 

He  faced  it  on  the  spot.  "They  had  arranged  —  ?" 

"Every  move  in  the  game.  And  they've  been 
arranging  ever  since.  He  has  had  every  day  his  little 
telegram  from  Cannes." 

It  made  Strether  open  his  eyes.  "Do  you  know 
that?" 

"  I  do  better.  I  see  it.  This  was,  before  I  met  him, 
what  I  wondered  whether  I  was  to  see.  But  as  soon  as 
I  met  him  I  ceased  to  wonder,  and  our  second  meeting 
made  me  sure.  I  took  him  all  in.  He  was  acting  —  he 
is  still  —  on  his  daily  instructions." 

"So  that  Chad  has  done  the  whole  thing?" 

133 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"  Oh  no  —  not  the  whole.  We  've  done  some  of  it. 
You  and  I  and  *  Europe.' " 

"  Europe  —  yes,"  Strether  mused. 

"Dear  old  Paris,"  she  seemed  to  explain.  But  there 
was  more,  and,  with  one  of  her  turns,  she  risked  it. 
"And  dear  old  Waymarsh.  You,"  she  declared, 
"  have  been  a  good  bit  of  it." 

He  sat  massive.  "A  good  bit  of  what,  ma'am  ?" 

"  Why  of  the  wonderful  consciousness  of  our  friend 
here.  You  've  helped  too  in  your  way  to  float  him  to 
where  he  is." 

"And  where  the  devil  is  he?" 

She  passed  it  on  with  a  laugh.  "Where  the  devil, 
Strether,  are  you  ? " 

He  spoke  as  if  he  had  just  been  thinking  it  out. 
"Well,  quite  already  in  Chad's  hands,  it  would  seem." 
And  he  had  had  with  this  another  thought.  "Will  that 
be  —  just  all  through  Bilham  —  the  way  he's  going 
to  work  it  ?  It  would  be,  for  him,  you  know,  an  idea. 
Afld  Chad  with  an  idea — !" 

"Well?"  she  asked  while  the  image  held  him. 

"  Well,  is  Chad  —  what  shall  I  say  ?  —  mon 
strous  ? " 

"Oh  as  much  as  you  like!  But  the  idea  you  speak 
of,"  she  said,  "won't  have  been  his  best.  He'll  have 
a  better.  It  won't  be  all  through  little  Bilham  that 
he '11  work  it." 

This  already  sounded  almost  like  a  hope  destroyed. 
"Through  whom  else  then  ?" 

"That's  what  we  shall  see!"  But  quite  as  she 
spoke  she  turned,  and  Strether  turned;  for  the  door 
of  the  box  had  opened,  with  the  click  of  the  ouvreuse, 

134 


BOOK  THIRD 

from  the  lobby,  and  a  gentleman,  a  stranger  to  them, 
had  come  in  with  a  quick  step.  The  door  closed  be 
hind  him,  and,  though  their  faces  showed  him  his  mis 
take,  his  air,  which  was  striking,  was  all  good  confid 
ence.  The  curtain  had  just  again  arisen,  and,  in  the 
hush  of  the  general  attention,  Strether's  challenge  was 
tacit,  as  was  also  the  greeting,  with  a  quickly-depre 
cating  hand  and  smile,  of  the  unannounced  visitor. 
He  discreetly  signed  that  he  would  wait,  would  stand, 
and  these  things  and  his  face,  one  look  from  which 
she  had  caught,  had  suddenly  worked  for  Miss  Gos- 
trey.  She  fitted  to  them  all  an  answer  for  Strether's 
last  question.  The  solid  stranger  was  simply  the  an 
swer  —  as  she  now,  turning  to  her  friend,  indicated. 
She  brought  it  straight  out  for  him  —  it  presented  the 
intruder.  "Why,  through  this  gentleman!"  The 
gentleman  indeed,  at  the  same  time,  though  sounding 
for  Strether  a  very  short  name,  did  practically  as 
much  to  explain.  Strether  gasped  the  name  back  — 
then  only  had  he  seen.  Miss  Gostrey  had  said  more 
than  she  knew.  They  were  in  presence  of  Chad  him 
self. 

Our  friend  was  to  go  over  it  afterwards  again  and 
again  —  he  was  going  over  it  much  of  the  time  that 
they  were  together,  and  they  were  together  constantly 
for  three  or  four  days :  the  note  had  been  so  strongly 
struck  during  that  first  half-hour  that  everything  hap 
pening  since  was  comparatively  a  minor  development. 
The  fact  was  that  his  perception  of  the  young  man's 
identity  —  so  absolutely  checked  for  a  minute  —  had 
been  quite  one  of  the  sensations  that  count  in  life;  he 
certainly  had  never  known  one  that  had  acted,  as  he 

135 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

might  have  said,  with  more  of  a  crowded  rush.  And 
the  rush,  though  both  vague  and  multitudinous,  had 
lasted  a  long  time,  protected,  as  it  were,  yet  at  the  same 
time  aggravated,  by  the  circumstance  of  its  coinciding 
with  a  stretch  of  decorous  silence.  They  could  n't  talk 
without  disturbing  the  spectators  in  the  part  of  the 
balcony  just  below  them;  and  it,  for  that  matter,  came 
to  Strether  —  being  a  thing  of  the  sort  that  did  come 
to  him  —  that  these  were  the  accidents  of  a  high  civil- 

O 

isation ;  the  imposed  tribute  to  propriety,  the  frequent 
exposure  to  conditions,  usually  brilliant,  in  which 
relief  has  to  await  its  time.  Relief  was  never  quite 
near  at  hand  for  kings,  queens,  comedians  and  other 
such  people,  and  though  you  might  be  yourself  not 
exactly  one  of  those,  you  could  yet,  in  leading  the  life 
of  high  pressure,  guess  a  little  how  they  sometimes  felt. 
It  was  truly  the  life  of  high  pressure  that  Strether  had 
seemed  to  feel  himself  lead  while  he  sat  there,  close 
to  Chad,  during  the  long  tension  of  the  act.  He  was 
in  presence  of  a  fact  that  occupied  his  whole  mind, 
that  occupied  for  the  half-hour  his  senses  themselves 
all  together;  but  he  couldn't  without  inconvenience 
show  anything  —  which  moreover  might  count  really 
as  luck.  What  he  might  have  shown,  had  he  shown  at 
all,  was  exactly  the  kind  of  emotion  —  the  emotion  of 
bewilderment  —  that  he  had  proposed  to  himself  from 
the  first,  whatever  should  occur,  to  show  least.  The 
phenomenon  that  had  suddenly  sat  down  there  with 
him  was  a  phenomenon  of  change  so  complete  that  his 
imagination,  which  had  worked  so  beforehand,  felt 
itself,  in  the  connexion,  without  margin  or  allowance. 
It  had  faced  every  contingency  but  that  Chad  should 

136 


BOOK  THIRD 

not  be  Chad,  and  this  was  what  it  now  had  to  face  with 
a  mere  strained  smile  and  an  uncomfortable  flush. 

He  asked  himself  if,  by  any  chance,  before  he 
should  have  in  some  way  to  commit  himself,  he  might 
feel  his  mind  settled  to  the  new  vision,  might  habituate 
it,  so  to  speak,  to  the  remarkable  truth.  But  oh  it  was 
too  remarkable,  the  truth;  for  what  could  be  more 
remarkable  than  this  sharp  rupture  of  an  identity  ? 
You  could  deal  with  a  man  as  himself  —  you  could  n't 
deal  with  him  as  somebody  else.  It  was  a  small  source 
of  peace  moreover  to  be  reduced  to  wondering  how 
little  he  might  know  in  such  an  event  what  a  sum  he 
was  setting  you.  He  could  n't  absolutely  not  know, 
for  you  could  n't  absolutely  not  let  him.  It  was  a  case 
then  simply,  a  strong  case,  as  people  nowadays  called 
such  things,  a  case  of  transformation  unsurpassed, 
and  the  hope  was  but  in  the  general  law  that  strong 
cases  were  liable  to  control  from  without.  Perhaps  he, 
Strether  himself,  was  the  only  person  after  all  aware  of 
it.  Even  Miss  Gostrey,  with  all  her  science,  would  n't 
be,  would  she  ?  —  and  he  had  never  seen  any  one  less 
aware  of  anything  than  Waymarsh  as  he  glowered  at 
Chad.  The  social  sightlessness  of  his  old  friend's 
survey  marked  for  him  afresh,  and  almost  in  an 
humiliating  way,  the  inevitable  limits  of  direct  aid 
from  this  source.  He  was  not  certain,  however,  of  not 
drawing  a  shade  of  compensation  from  the  privilege, 
as  yet  untasted,  of  knowing  more  about  something  in 
particular  than  Miss  Gostrey  did.  His  situation  too 
was  a  case,  for  that  matter,  and  he  was  now  so  inter 
ested,  quite  so  privately  agog,  about  it,  that  he  had 
already  an  eye  to  the  fun  it  would  be  to  open  up  to  her 

137 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

afterwards.  He  derived  during  his  half-hour  no  assist 
ance  from  her,  and  just  this  fact  of  her  not  meeting 
his  eyes  played  a  little,  it  must  be  confessed,  into  his 
predicament. 

He  had  introduced  Chad,  in  the  first  minutes,  under 
his  breath,  and  there  was  never  the  primness  in  her  of 
the  person  unacquainted;  but  she  had  none  the  less 
betrayed  at  first  no  vision  but  of  the  stage,  where  she 
occasionally  found  a  pretext  for  an  appreciative  mo 
ment  that  she  invited  Waymarsh  to  share.  The  latter' s 
faculty  of  participation  had  never  had,  all  round,  such 
an  assault  to  meet;  the  pressure  on  him  being  the 
sharper  for  this  chosen  attitude  in  her,  as  Strether 
judged  it,  of  isolating,  for  their  natural  intercourse, 
Chad  and  himself.  This  intercourse  was  meanwhile 
restricted  to  a  frank  friendly  look  from  the  young  man, 
something  markedly  like  a  smile,  but  falling  far  short 
of  a  grin,  and  to  the  vivacity  of  Strether's  private 
speculation  as  to  whether  he  carried  himself  like  a 
fool.  He  did  n't  quite  see  how  he  could  so  feel  as  one 
without  somehow  showing  as  one.  The  worst  of  that 
question  moreover  was  that  he  knew  it  as  a  symptom 
the  sense  of  which  annoyed  him.  "  If  I  'm  going  to  be 
odiously  conscious  of  how  I  may  strike  the  fellow,"  he 
reflected,  "  it  was  so  little  what  I  came  out  for  that  I 
may  as  well  stop  before  I  begin."  This  sage  consider 
ation  too,  distinctly,  seemed  to  leave  untouched  the 
fact  that  he  was  going  to  be  conscious.  He  was  con 
scious  of  everything  but  of  what  would  have  served 
him. 

He  was  to  know  afterwards,  in  the  watches  of  the 
night,  that  nothing  would  have  been  more  open  to  him 

.138 


BOOK  THIRD 

than  after  a  minute  or  two  to  propose  to  Chad  to  seek 
with  him  the  refuge  of  the  lobby.  He  had  n't  only  not 
proposed  it,  but  had  lacked  even  the  presence  of  mind 
to  see  it  as  possible.  He  had  stuck  there  like  a  school 
boy  wishing  not  to  miss  a  minute  of  the  show ;  though 
for  that  portion  of  the  show  then  presented  he  had  n't 
had  an  instant's  real  attention.  He  could  n't  when  the 
curtain  fell  have  given  the  slightest  account  of  what 
had  happened.  He  had  therefore,  further,  not  at  that 
moment  acknowledged  the  amenity  added  by  this 
acceptance  of  his  awkwardness  to  Chad's  general  pa 
tience.  Had  n't  he  none  the  less  known  at  the  very 
time  —  known  it  stupidly  and  without  reaction  — 
that  the  boy  was  accepting  something  ?  He  was  mod 
estly  benevolent,  the  boy  —  that  was  at  least  what  he 
had  been  capable  of  the  superiority  of  making  out  his 
chance  to  be;  and  one  had  one's  self  literally  not  had 
the  gumption  to  get  in  ahead  of  him.  If  we  should  go 
into  all  that  occupied  our  friend  in  the  watches  of  the 
night  we  should  have  to  mend  our  pen;  but  an  instance 
or  two  may  mark  for  us  the  vividness  with  which  he 
could  remember.  He  remembered  the  two  absurdities 
that,  if  his  presence  of  mind  bad  failed,  were  the 
things  that  had  had  most  to  do  with  it.  He  had  never 
in  his  life  seen  a  young  man  come  into  a  box  at  ten 
o'clock  at  night,  and  would,  if  challenged  on  the  ques 
tion  in  advance,  have  scarce  been  ready  to  pronounce 
as  to  different  ways  of  doing  so.  But  it  was  in  spite  of 
this  definite  to  him  that  Chad  had  had  a  way  that  was 
wonderful :  a  fact  carrying  with  it  an  implication  that, 
as  one  might  imagine  it,  he  knew,  he  had  learned, 
how. 

139 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Here  already  then  were  abounding  results ;  he  had 
on  the  spot  and  without  the  least  trouble  of  intention 
taught  Strether  that  even  in  so  small  a  thing  as  that 
there  were  different  ways.  He  had  done  in  the  same 
line  still  more  than  this ;  had  by  a  mere  shake  or  two 
of  the  head  made  his  old  friend  observe  that  the 
change  in  him  was  perhaps  more  than  anything  else, 
for  the  eye,  a  matter  of  the  marked  streaks  of  grey, 
extraordinary  at  his  age,  in  his  thick  black  hair;  as 
well  as  that  this  new  feature  was  curiously  becoming 
to  him,  did  something  for  him,  as  characterisation, 
also  even  —  of  all  things  in  the  world  —  as  refine 
ment,  that  had  been  a  good  deal  wanted.  Strether 
felt,  however,  he  would  have  had  to  confess,  that  it 
would  n't  have  been  easy  just  now,  on  this  and  other 
counts,  in  the  presence  of  what  had  been  supplied,  to 
be  quite  clear  as  to  what  had  been  missed.  A  reflex 
ion  a  candid  critic  might  have  made  of  old,  for  in 
stance,  was  that  it  would  have  been  happier  for  the 
son  to  look  more  like  the  mother;  but  this  was  a  re 
flexion  that  at  present  would  never  occur.  The  ground 
had  quite  fallen  away  from  it,  yet  no  resemblance 
whatever  to  the  mother  had  supervened.  It  would 
have  been  hard  for  a  young  man's  face  and  air  to  dis 
connect  themselves  more  completely  than  Chad's  at 
this  juncture  from  any  discerned,  from  any  imagin 
able  aspect  of  a  New  England  female  parent.  That  of 
course  was  no  more  than  had  been  on  the  cards;  but  it 
produced  in  Strether  none  the  less  one  of  those  fre 
quent  phenomena  of  mental  reference  with  which  all 
judgement  in  him  was  actually  beset. 

Again  and  again  as  the  days  passed  he  had  had  a 
140 


BOOK  THIRD 

sense  of  the  pertinence  of  communicating  quickly 
with  Woollett  —  communicating  with  a  quickness 
with  which  telegraphy  alone  would  rhyme;  the  fruit 
really  of  a  fine  fancy  in  him  for  keeping  things 
straight,  for  the  happy  forestalment  of  jerror.  No  one 
could  explain  better  when  needful,  nor  put  more  con 
science  into  an  account  or  a  report;  which  burden  of 
conscience  is  perhaps  exactly  the  reason  why  his 
heart  always  sank  when  the  clouds  of  explanation 
gathered.  His  highest  ingenuity  was  in  keeping  the 
sky  of  life  clear  of  them.  Whether  or  no  he  had  a 
grand  idea  of  the  lucid,  he  held  that  nothing  ever  was 
in  fact  —  for  any  one  else  —  explained.  One  went 
through  the  vain  motions,  but  it  was  mostly  a  waste  of 
life.  A  personal  relation  was  a  relation  only  so  long  as 
people  either  perfectly  understood  or,  better  still, 
did  n't  care  if  they  did  n't.  From  the  moment  they 
cared  if  they  did  n't  it  was  living  by  the  sweat  of  one's 
brow ;  and  the  sweat  of  one's  brow  was  just  what  one 
might  buy  one's  self  off  from  by  keeping  the  ground 
free  of  the  wild  weed  of  delusion.  It  easily  grew  too 
fast,  and  the  Atlantic  cable  now  alone  could  race  with 
it.  That  agency  would  each  day  have  testified  for  him 
to  something  that  was  not  what  Woollett  had  argued. 
He  was  not  at  this  moment  absolutely  sure  that  the 
effect  of  the  morrow's  —  or  rather  of  the  night's  — 
appreciation  of  the  crisis  would  n't  be  to  determine 
some  brief  missive.  "Have  at  last  seen  him,  but  oh 
dear ! "  —  some  temporary  relief  of  that  sort  seemed 
to  hover  before  him.  It  hovered  somehow  as  prepar 
ing  them  all  —  yet  preparing  them  for  what  ?  If  he 
might  do  so  more  luminously  and  cheaply  he  would 

141 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

tick  out  in  four  words:  "Awfully  old  —  grey  hair." 
To  this  particular  item  in  Chad's  appearance  he  con 
stantly,  during  their  mute  half-hour,  reverted ;  as  if  so 
very  much  more  than  he  could  have  said  had  been  in 
volved  in  it.  The  most  he  could  have  said  would  have 
been :  "  If  he 's  going  to  make  me  feel  young  — ! " 
which  indeed,  however,  carried  with  it  quite  enough. 
If  Strether  was  to  feel  young,  that  is,  it  would  be  be 
cause  Chad  was  to  feel  old;  and  an  aged  and  hoary 
sinner  had  been  no  part  of  the  scheme. 

The  question  of  Chadwick's  true  time  of  life  was, 
doubtless,  what  came  up  quickest  after  the  adjourn 
ment  of  the  two,  when  the  play  was  over,  to  a  cafe  in 
the  Avenue  de  1'Opera.  Miss  Gostrey  had  in  due 
course  been  perfect  for  such  a  step ;  she  had  known 
exactly  what  they  wanted  —  to  go  straight  somewhere 
and  talk;  and  Strether  had  even  felt  she  had  known 
what  he  wished  to  say  and  that  he  was  arranging 
immediately  to  begin.  She  had  n't  pretended  this, 
as  she  had  pretended  on  the  other  hand,  to  have 
divined  Waymarsh's  wish  to  extend  to  her  an  inde 
pendent  protection  homeward ;  but  Strether  neverthe 
less  found  how,  after  he  had  Chad  opposite  to  him  at 
a  small  table  in  the  brilliant  halls  that  his  companion 
straightway  selected,  sharply  and  easily  discriminated 
from  others,  it  was  quite,  to  his  mind,  as  if  she  heard 
him  speak;  as  if,  sitting  up,  a  mile  away,  in  the  little 
apartment  he  knew,  she  would  listen  hard  enough  to 
catch.  He  found  too  that  he  liked  that  idea,  and  he 
wished  that,  by  the  same  token,  Mrs.  Newsome  might 
have  caught  as  well.  For  what  had  above  all  been 
determined  in  him  as  a  necessity  of  the  first  order  was 

142 


BOOK  THIRD 

not  to  lose  another  hour,  nor  a  fraction  of  one ;  was  to 
advance,  to  overwhelm,  with  a  rush.  This  was  how 
he  would  anticipate  —  by  a  night-attack,  as  might  be 
—  any  forced  maturity  that  a  crammed  consciousness 
of  Paris  was  likely  to  take  upon  itself  to  assert  on  be 
half  of  the  boy.  He  knew  to  the  full,  on  what  he  had 
just  extracted  from  Miss  Gostrey,  Chad's  marks  of 
alertness;  but  they  were  a  reason  the  more  for  not 
dawdling.  If  he  was  himself  moreover  to  be  treated  as 
young  he  would  n't  at  all  events  be  so  treated  before 
he  should  have  struck  out  at  least  once.  His  arms 
might  be  pinioned  afterwards,  but  it  would  have  been 
left  on  record  that  he  was  fifty.  The  importance  of 
this  he  had  indeed  begun  to  feel  before  they  left  the 
theatre;  it  had  become  a  wild  unrest,  urging  him  to 
seize  his  chance.  He  could  scarcely  wait  for  it  as  they 
went ;  he  was  on  the  verge  of  the  indecency  of  bringing 
up  the  question  in  the  street;  he  fairly  caught  himself 
going  on  —  so  he  afterwards  invidiously  named  it  — 
as  if  there  would  be  for  him  no  second  chance  should 
the  present  be  lost.  Not  till,  on  the  purple  divan  be 
fore  the  perfunctory  bock,  he  had  brought  out  the 
words  themselves,  was  he  sure,  for  that  matter,  that 
the  present  would  be  saved. 


BOOK  FOURTH 


"I'VE  come,  you  know,  to  make  you  break  with 
everything,  neither  more  nor  less,  and  take  you 
straight  home;  so  you'll  be  so  good  as  immediately 
and  favourably  to  consider  it ! "  —  Strether,  face  to 
face  with  Chad  after  the  play,  had  sounded  these 
words  almost  breathlessly,  and  with  an  effect  at  first 
positively  disconcerting  to  himself  alone.  For  Chad's 
receptive  attitude  was  that  of  a  person  who  had  been 
gracefully  quiet  while  the  messenger  at  last  reaching 
him  has  run  a  mile  through  the  dust.  During  some 
seconds  after  he  had  spoken  Strether  felt  as  if  he  had 
made  some  such  exertion;  he  was  not  even  certain 
that  the  perspiration  was  n't  on  his  brow.  It  was  the 
kind  of  consciousness  for  which  he  had  to  thank  the 
look  that,  while  the  strain  lasted,  the  young  man's 
eyes  gave  him.  They  reflected  —  and  the  deuce  of  the 
thing  was  that  they  reflected  really  with  a  sort  of  shy 
ness  of  kindness  —  his  momentarily  disordered  state ; 
which  fact  brought  on  in  its  turn  for  our  friend  the 
dawn  of  a  fear  that  Chad  might  simply  "take  it  out" 
—  take  everything  out  —  in  being  sorry  for  him.  Such 
a  fear,  any  fear,  was  unpleasant.  But  everything  was 
unpleasant;  it  was  odd  how  everything  had  suddenly 
turned  so.  This  however  was  no  reason  for  letting 
the  least  thing  go.  Strether  had  the  next  minute  pro 
ceeded  as  roundly  as  if  with  an  advantage  to  follow 
up.  "Of  course  I  'm  a  busybody,  if  you  want  to  fight 

147 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

the  case  to  the  death;  but  after  all  mainly  in  the  sense 
of  having  known  you  and  having  given  you  such  at 
tention  as  you  kindly  permitted  when  you  were  in 
jackets  and  knickerbockers.  Yes  —  it  was  knicker 
bockers,  I'm  busybody  enough  to  remember  that; 
and  that  you  had,  for  your  age  —  I  speak  of  the  first 
far-away  time  —  tremendously  stout  legs.  Well,  we 
want  you  to  break.  Your  mother's  heart's  passion 
ately  set  upon  it,  but  she  has  above  and  beyond  that 
excellent  arguments  and  reasons.  I've  not  put  them 
into  her  head  —  I  need  n't  remind  you  how  little  she 's 
a  person  who  needs  that.  But  they  exist  —  you  must 
take  it  from  me  as  a  friend  both  of  hers  and  yours  — 
for  myself  as  well.  I  did  n't  invent  them,  I  did  n't 
originally  work  them  out;  but  I  understand  them,  I 
think  I  can  explain  them  —  by  which  I  mean  make 
you  actively  do  them  justice;  and  that's  why  you  see 
me  here.  You  had  better  know  the  worst  at  once.  It 's 
a  question  of  an  immediate  rupture  and  an  immediate 
return.  I've  been  conceited  enough  to  dream  I  can 
sugar  that  pill.  I  take  at  any  rate  the  greatest  interest 
in  the  question.  I  took  it  already  before  I  left  home; 
and  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that,  altered  as  you  are, 
I  take  it  still  more  now  that  I've  seen  you.  You're 
older  and  —  I  don't  know  what  to  call  it !  —  more  of 
a  handful ;  but  you  're  by  so  much  the  more,  I  seem  to 
make  out,  to  our  purpose." 

"  Do  I  strike  you  as  improved  ? "  Strether  was  to 
recall  that  Chad  had  at  this  point  enquired. 

He  was  likewise  to  recall  —  and  it  had  to  count  for 
some  time  as  his  greatest  comfort  —  that  it  had  been 
"given"  him,  as  they  said  at  Woollett,  to  reply  with 

148 


BOOK  FOURTH 

some  presence  of  mind:  "I  haven't  the  least  idea." 
He  was  really  for  a  while  to  like  thinking  he  had  been 
positively  hard.  On  the  point  of  conceding  that  Chad 
had  improved  in  appearance,  but  that  to  the  question 
of  appearance  the  remark  must  be  confined,  he 
checked  even  that  compromise  and  left  his  reserva 
tion  bare.  Not  only  his  moral,  but  also,  as  it  were,  his 
aesthetic  sense  had  a  little  to  pay  for  this,  Chad  being 
unmistakeably  —  and  was  n't  it  a  matter  of  the  con 
founded  grey  hair  again  ?  —  handsomer  than  he  had 
ever  promised.  That  however  fell  in  perfectly  with 
what  Strether  had  said.  They  had  no  desire  to  keep 
down  his  proper  expansion,  and  he  would  n't  be  less 
to  their  purpose  for  not  looking,  as  he  had  too  often 
done  of  old,  only  bold  and  wild.  There  was  indeed  a 
signal  particular  in  which  he  would  distinctly  be  more 
so.  Strether  did  n't,  as  he  talked,  absolutely  follow 
himself;  he  only  knew  he  was  clutching  his  thread  and 
that  he  held  it  from  moment  to  moment  a  little  tighter; 
his  mere  uninterruptedness  during  the  few  minutes 
helped  him  to  do  that.  He  had  frequently,  for  a 
month,  turned  over  what  he  should  say  on  this  very 
occasion,  and  he  seemed  at  last  to  have  said  nothing 
he  had  thought  of —  everything  was  so  totally  differ 
ent. 

But  in  spite  of  all  he  had  put  the  flag  at  the  window. 
This  was  what  he  had  done,  and  there  was  a  minute 
during  which  he  affected  himself  as  having  shaken  it 
hard,  flapped  it  with  a  mighty  flutter,  straight  in  front 
of  his  companion's  nose.  It  gave  him  really  almost  the 
sense  of  having  already  acted  his  part.  The  moment 
ary  relief  —  as  if  from  the  knowledge  that  nothing  of 

149 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

that  at  least  could  be  undone  —  sprang  from  a  par 
ticular  cause,  the  cause  that  had  flashed  into  opera 
tion,  in  Miss  Gostrey's  box,  with  direct  apprehension, 
with  amazed  recognition,  and  that  had  been  con 
cerned  since  then  in  every  throb  of  his  consciousness. 
What  it  came  to  was  that  with  an  absolutely  new 
quantity  to  deal  with  one  simply  could  n't  know.  The 
new  quantity  was  represented  by  the  fact  that  Chad 
had  been  made  over.  That  was  all;  whatever  it  was  it 
was  everything.  Strether  had  never  seen  the  thing  so 
done  before  —  it  was  perhaps  a  speciality  of  Paris. 
If  one  had  been  present  at  the  process  one  might  little 
by  little  have  mastered  the  result;  but  he  was  face  to 
face,  as  matters  stood,  with  the  finished  business.  It 
had  freely  been  noted  for  him  that  he  might  be  received 
as  a  dog  among  skittles,  but  that  was  on  the  basis  of 
the  old  quantity.  He  had  originally  thought  of  lines 
and  tones  as  things  to  be  taken,  but  these  possibilities 
had  now  quite  melted  away.  There  was  no  computing 
at  all  what  the  young  man  before  him  would  think  or 
feel  or  say  on  any  subject  whatever.  This  intelligence 
Strether  had  afterwards,  to  account  for  his  nervous 
ness,  reconstituted  as  he  might,  just  as  he  had  also 
reconstituted  the  promptness  with  which  Chad  had 
corrected  his  uncertainty.  An  extraordinarily  short 
time  had  been  required  for  the  correction,  and  there 
had  ceased  to  be  anything  negative  in  his  compan 
ion's  face  and  air  as  soon  as  it  was  made.  "Your 
engagement  to  my  mother  has  become  then  what  they 
call  here  a  fait  accompli?"  —  it  had  consisted,  the 
determinant  touch,  in  nothing  more  than  that. 

Well,  that  was  enough,  Strether  had  felt  while  his 
150 


BOOK  FOURTH 

answer  hung  fire.  He  had  felt  at  the  same  time,  how 
ever,  that  nothing  could  less  become  him  than  that  it 
should  hang  fire  too  long.  "Yes/'  he  said  brightly, 
"it  was  on  the  happy  settlement  of  the  question  that 
I  started.  You  see  therefore  to  what  tune  I  'm  in  your 
family.  Moreover,"  he  added,  "I've  been  supposing 
you'd  suppose  it." 

"Oh  I've  been  supposing  it  for  a  long  time,  and 
what  you  tell  me  helps  me  to  understand  that  you 
should  want  to  do  something.  To"  do  something,  I 
mean,"  said  Chad,  "to  commemorate  an  event  so  — 
what  do  they  call  it  ?  —  so  auspicious.  I  see  you  make 
out,  and  not  unnaturally,"  he  continued,  "that  bring 
ing  me  home  in  triumph  as  a  sort  of  wedding-present 
to  Mother  would  commemorate  it  better  than  any 
thing  else.  You  want  to  make  a  bonfire  in  fact,"  he 
laughed,  "and  you  pitch  me  on.  Thank  you,  thank 
you!"  he  laughed  again. 

He  was  altogether  easy  about  it,  and  this  made 
Strether  now  see  how  at  bottom,  and  in  spite  of  the 
shade  of  shyness  that  really  cost  him  nothing,  he  had 
from  the  first  moment  been  easy  about  everything. 
The  shade  of  shyness  was  mere  good  taste.  People 
with  manners  formed  could  apparently  have,  as  one 
of  their  best  cards,  the  shade  of  shyness  too.  He  had 
leaned  a  little  forward  to  speak;  his  elbows  were  on 
the  table;  and  the  inscrutable  new  face  that  he  had 
got  somewhere  and  somehow  was  brought  by  the 
movement  nearer  to  his  critic's.  There  was  a  fascina 
tion  for  that  critic  in  its  not  being,  this  ripe  physi 
ognomy,  the  face  that,  under  observation  at  least,  he 
had  originally  carried  away  from  Woollett.  Strether 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

found  a  certain  freedom  on  his  own  side  in  defining  it 
as  that  of  a  man  of  the  world  —  a  formula  that  indeed 
seemed  to  come  now  in  some  degree  to  his  relief;  that 
of  a  man  to  whom  things  had  happened  and  were 
variously  known.  In  gleams,  in  glances,  the  past  did 
perhaps  peep  out  of  it;  but  such  lights  were  faint  and 
instantly  merged.  Chad  was  brown  and  thick  and 
strong,  and  of  old  Chad  had  been  rough.  Was  all  the 
difference  therefore  that  he  was  actually  smooth  ? 
Possibly;  for  that  he  was  smooth  was  as  marked  as  in 
the  taste  of  a  sauce  or  in  the  rub  of  a  hand.  The  effect 
of  it  was  general  —  it  had  retouched  his  features, 
drawn  them  with  a  cleaner  line.  It  had  cleared  his 
eyes  and  settled  his  colour  and  polished  his  fine  square 
teeth  —  the  main  ornament  of  his  face ;  and  at  the 
same  time  that  it  had  given  him  a  form  and  a  surface, 
almost  a  design,  it  had  toned  his  voice,  established  his 
accent,  encouraged  his  smile  to  more  play  and  his 
other  motions  to  less.  He  had  formerly,  with  a  great 
deal  of  action,  expressed  very  little;  and  he  now  ex 
pressed  whatever  was  necessary  with  almost  none  at 
all.  It  was  as  if  in  short  he  had  really,  copious  per 
haps  but  shapeless,  been  put  into  a  firm  mould  and 
turned  successfully  out.  The  phenomenon  —  Strether 
kept  eyeing  it  as  a  phenomenon,  an  eminent  case  — 
was  marked  enough  to  be  touched  by  the  finger.  He 
finally  put  his  hand  across  the  table  and  laid  it  on 
Chad's  arm.  "  If  you  '11  promise  me  —  here  on  the 
spot  and  giving  me  your  word  of  honour  —  to  break 
straight  off,  you'll  make  the  future  the  real  right 
thing  for  all  of  us  alike.  You  '11  ease  off  the  strain  of 
this  decent  but  none  the  less  acute  suspense  in  which 

152 


BOOK  FOURTH 

I  Ve  for  so  many  days  been  waiting  for  you,  and  let 
me  turn  in  to  rest.  I  shall  leave  you  with  my  blessing 
and  go  to  bed  in  peace." 

Chad  again  fell  back  at  this  and,  his  hands  pocketed, 
settled  himself  a  little;  in  which  posture  he  looked, 
though  he  rather  anxiously  smiled,  only  the  more 
earnest.  Then  Strether  seemed  to  see  that  he  was 
really  nervous,  and  he  took  that  as  what  he  would  have 
called  a  wholesome  sign.  The  only  mark  of  it  hitherto 
had  been  his  more  than  once  taking  off  and  putting  on 
his  wide-brimmed  crush  hat.  He  had  at  this  moment 
made  the  motion  again  to  remove  it,  then  had  only 
pushed  it  back,  so  that  it  hung  informally  on  his 
strong  young  grizzled  crop.  It  was  a  touch  that  gave 
the  note  of  the  familiar  —  the  intimate  and  the  be 
lated  —  to  their  quiet  colloquy;  and  it  was  indeed  by 
some  such  trivial  aid  that  Strether  became  aware  at 
the  same  moment  of  something  else.  The  observation 
was  at  any  rate  determined  in  him  by  some  light  too 
fine  to  distinguish  from  so  many  others,  but  it  was 
none  the  less  sharply  determined.  Chad  looked  un- 
mistakeably  during  these  instants  —  well,  as  Strether 
put  it  to  himself,  all  he  was  worth.  Our  friend  had  a 
sudden  apprehension  of  what  that  would  on  certain 
sides  be.  He  saw  him  in  a  flash  as  the  young  man 
marked  out  by  women ;  and  for  a  concentrated  minute 
the  dignity,  the  comparative  austerity,  as  he  funnily 
fancied  it,  of  this  character  affected  him  almost  with 
awe.  There  was  an  experience  on  his  interlocutor's 
part  that  looked  out  at  him  from  under  the  displaced 
hat,  and  that  l<poked  out  moreover  by  a  force  of  its 
own,  the  deep  fact  of  its  quantity  and  quality,  and  not 

153 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

through  Chad's  intending  bravado  or  swagger.  That 
was  then  the  way  men  marked  out  by  women  were  — 
and  also  the  men  by  whom  the  women  were  doubtless 
in  turn  sufficiently  distinguished.  It  affected  Strether 
for  thirty  seconds  as  a  relevant  truth;  a  truth  which, 
however,  the  next  minute,  had  fallen  into  its  relation. 
"Can't  you  imagine  there  being  some  questions," 
Chad  asked,  "that  a  fellow  —  however  much  im 
pressed  by  your  charming  way  of  stating  things  — 
would  like  to  put  to  you  first  ? " 

"  Oh  yes  —  easily.  I  'm  here  to  answer  everything. 
I  think  I  can  even  tell  you  things,  of  the  greatest  inter 
est  to  you,  that  you  won't  know  enough  to  ask  me. 
We  '11  take  as  many  days  to  it  as  you  like.  But  I  want," 
Strether  wound  up,  "to  go  to  bed  now." 

"Really?" 

Chad  had  spoken  in  such  surprise  that  he  was 
amused.  "  Can't  you  believe  it  ?  —  with  what  you  put 
me  through  ? " 

The  young  man  seemed  to  consider.  "Oh  I  have 
n't  put  you  through  much  —  yet." 

"  Do  you  mean  there 's  so  much  more  to  come  ? " 
Strether  laughed.  "All  the  more  reason  then  that  I 
should  gird  myself."  And  as  if  to  mark  what  he  felt 
he  could  by  this  time  count  on  he  was  already  on  his 
feet. 

Chad,  still  seated,  stayed  him,  with  a  hand  against 
him,  as  he  passed  between  their  table  and  the  next. 
"Oh  we  shall  get  on!" 

The  tone  was,  as  who  should  say,  everything 
Strether  could  have  desired;  and  quite  as  good  the 
expression  of  face  with  which  the  speaker  had  looked 

154 


BOOK  FOURTH 

up  at  him  and  kindly  held  him.  All  these  things 
lacked  was  their  not  showing  quite  so  much  as  the 
fruit  of  experience.  Yes,  experience  was  what  Chad 
did  play  on  him,  if  he  did  n't  play  any  grossness  of 
defiance.  Of  course  experience  was  in  a  manner  defi 
ance  ;  but  it  was  n't,  at  any  rate  —  rather  indeed  quite 
the  contrary ! — grossness ;  which  was  so  much  gained. 
He  fairly  grew  older,  Strether  thought,  while  he  him 
self  so  reasoned.  Then  with  his  mature  pat  of  his 
visitor's  arm  he  also  got  up;  and  there  had  been 
enough  of  it  all  by  this  time  to  make  the  visitor  feel 
that  something  was  settled.  Was  n't  it  settled  that  he 
had  at  least  the  testimony  of  Chad's  own  belief  in  a 
settlement  ?  Strether  found  himself  treating  Chad's 
profession  that  they  would  get  on  as  a  sufficient  basis 
for  going  to  bed.  He  had  n't  nevertheless  after  this 
gone  to  bed  directly;  for  when  they  had  again  passed 
out  together  into  the  mild  bright  night  a  check  had 
virtually  sprung  from  nothing  more  than  a  small  cir 
cumstance  which  might  have  acted  only  as  confirming 
quiescence.  There  were  people,  expressive  sound, 
projected  light,  still  abroad,  and  after  they  had  taken 
in  for  a  moment,  through  everything,  the  great  clear 
architectural  street,  they  turned  off  in  tacit  union  to 
the  quarter  of  Strether' s  hotel.  "Of  course,"  Chad 
here  abruptly  began,  "of  course  Mother's  making 
things  out  with  you  about  me  has  been  natural  —  and 
of  course  also  you've  had  a  good  deal  to  go  upon. 
Still,  you  must  have  filled  out." 

He  had  stopped,  leaving  his  friend  to  wonder  a  little 
what  point  he  wished  to  make;  and  this  it  was  that 
enabled  Strether  meanwhile  to  make  one.  "Oh  we 've 

155 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

never  pretended  to  go  into  detail.  We  were  n't  in  the 
least  bound  to  that.  It  was  '  filling  out '  enough  to  miss 
you  as  we  did." 

But  Chad  rather  oddly  insisted,  though  under  the 
high  lamp  at  their  corner,  where  they  paused,  he  had 
at  first  looked  as  if  touched  by  Strether's  allusion  to 
the  long  sense,  at  home,  of  his  absence.  "What  I 
mean  is  you  must  have  imagined." 

"  Imagined  what  ? " 

"Well  — horrors." 

It  affected  Strether :  horrors  were  so  little  —  super 
ficially  at  least  —  in  this  robust  and  reasoning  image. 
But  he  was  none  the  less  there  to  be  veracious.  "Yes, 
I  dare  say  we  have  imagined  horrors.  But  where 's 
the  harm  if  we  have  n't  been  wrong  ? " 

Chad  raised  his  face  to  the  lamp,  and  it  was  one  of 
the  moments  at  which  he  had,  in  his  extraordinary 
way,  most  his  air  of  designedly  showing  himself.  It 
was  as  if  at  these  instants  he  just  presented  himself, 
his  identity  so  rounded  off,  his  palpable  presence  and 
his  massive  young  manhood,  as  such  a  link  in  the 
chain  as  might  practically  amount  to  a  kind  of  demon 
stration.  It  was  as  if —  and  how  but  anomalously  ?  — 
he  could  n't  after  all  help  thinking  sufficiently  well  of 
these  things  to  let  them  go  for  what  they  were  worth. 
What  could  there  be  in  this  for  Strether  but  the  hint 
of  some  self-respect,  some  sense  of  power,  oddly  per 
verted  ;  something  latent  and  beyond  access,  ominous 
and  perhaps  enviable  ?  The  intimation  had  the  next 
thing,  in  a  flash,  taken  on  a  name  —  a  name  on  which 
our  friend  seized  as  he  asked  himself  if  he  were  n't 
perhaps  really  dealing  with  an  irreducible  young  Pa- 


BOOK  FOURTH 

gan.  This  description  —  he  quite  jumped  at  it  —  had 
a  sound  that  gratified  his  mental  ear,  so  that  of  a  sud 
den  he  had  already  adopted  it.  Pagan  —  yes,  that 
was,  was  n't  it  ?  what  Chad  would  logically  be.  It  was 
what  he  must  be.  It  was  what  he  was.  The  idea  was 
a  clue  and,  instead  of  darkening  the  prospect,  pro 
jected  a  certain  clearness.  Strether  made  out  in  this 
quick  ray  that  a  Pagan  was  perhaps,  at  the  pass  they 
had  come  to,  the  thing  most  wanted  at  Woollett. 
They'd  be  able  to  do  with  one  —  a  good  one;  he'd 
find  an  opening  —  yes;  and  Strether's  imagination 
even  now  prefigured  and  accompanied  the  first  ap 
pearance  there  of  the  rousing  personage.  He  had  only 
the  slight  discomfort  of  feeling,  as  the  young  man 
turned  away  from  the  lamp,  that  his  thought  had  in 
the  momentary  silence  possibly  been  guessed.  "Well, 
I've  no  doubt,"  said  Chad,  "you've  come  near 
enough.  The  details,  as  you  say,  don't  matter.  It  has 
been  generally  the  case  that  I  've  let  myself  go.  But 
I  'm  coming  round  —  I  'm  not  so  bad  now."  With 
which  they  walked  on  again  to  Strether's  hotel. 

"Do  you  mean,"  the  latter  asked  as  they  ap 
proached  the  door,  "  that  there  is  n't  any  woman  with 
you  now  ? " 

"  But  pray  what  has  that  to  do  with  it  ? " 

"Why  it's  the  whole  question." 

"Of  my  going  home  ?"  Chad  was  clearly  surprised. 
"  Oh  not  much !  Do  you  think  that  when  I  want  to  go 
any  one  will  have  any  power  — " 

"To  keep  you  "  —  Strether  took  him  straight  up  — 
"from  carrying  out  your  wish?  Well,  our  idea  has 
been  that  somebody  has  hitherto  —  or  a  good  many 

157 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

persons  perhaps  —  kept  you  pretty  well  from  *  want 
ing.'  That 's  what  —  if  you  're  in  anybody's  hands  — 
may  again  happen.  You  don't  answer  my  question  " 
—  he  kept  it  up ;  "  but  if  you  are  n't  in  anybody's 
hands  so  much  the  better.  There 's  nothing  then  but 
what  makes  for  your  going." 

Chad  turned  this  over.  "  I  don't  answer  your  ques 
tion  ?"  He  spoke  quite  without  resenting  it.  "Well, 
such  questions  have  always  a  rather  exaggerated  side. 
One  does  n't  know  quite  what  you  mean  by  being  in 
women's 'hands.'  It 's  all  so  vague.  One  is  when  one 
is  n't.  One  is  n't  when  one  is.  And  then  one  can't 
quite  give  people  away."  He  seemed  kindly  to  explain. 
"  I  've  never  got  stuck  —  so  very  hard ;  and,  as  against 
anything  at  any  time  really  better,  I  don't  think  I've 
ever  been  afraid."  There  was  something  in  it  that 
held  Strether  to  wonder,  and  this  gave  him  time  to  go 
on.  He  broke  out  as  with  a  more  helpful  thought. 
"  Don't  you  know  how  I  like  Paris  itself  ? " 

The  upshot  was  indeed  to  make  our  friend  marvel. 
"  Oh  if  that 's  all  that 's  the  matter  with  you  — ! "  It 
was  be  who  almost  showed  resentment. 

Chad's  smile  of  a  truth  more  than  met  it.  "  But 
is  n't  that  enough  ? " 

Strether  hesitated,  but  it  came  out.  "Not  enough 
for  your  mother!"  Spoken,  however,  it  sounded  a 
trifle  odd  —  the  effect  of  which  was  that  Chad  broke 
into  a  laugh.  Strether,  at  this,  succumbed  as  well, 
though  with  extreme  brevity.  "  Permit  us  to  have  still 
our  theory.  But  if  you  are  so  free  and  so  strong  you  're 
inexcusable.  I'll  write  in  the  morning,"  he  added 
with  decision.  "  I  '11  say  I  've  got  you." 

158 


BOOK  FOURTH 

This  appeared  to  open  for  Chad  a  new  interest. 
"  How  often  do  you  write  ?  " 

"Oh  perpetually." 

"And  at  great  length  ?" 

Strether  had  become  a  little  impatient.  "I  hope 
it's  not  found  too  great." 

"Oh  I 'm  sure  not.  And  you  hear  as  often  ? " 

Again  Strether  paused.  "As  often  as  I  deserve." 

"  Mother  writes,"  said  Chad,  "  a  lovely  letter." 

Strether,  before  the  closed  porte-cochere,  fixed  him  a 
moment.  "  It 's  more,  my  boy,  than  you  do !  But  our 
suppositions  don't  matter,"  he  added,  "if  you're 
actually  not  entangled." 

Chad's  pride  seemed  none  the  less  a  little  touched. 
"  I  never  was  that  —  let  me  insist.  I  always  had  my 
own  way."  With  which  he  pursued :  "And  I  have  it  at 
present." 

"Then  what  are  you  here  for?  What  has  kept 
you,"  Strether  asked,  "  if  you  have  been  able  to  leave  ? " 

It  made  Chad,  after  a  stare,  throw  himself  back. 
"  Do  you  think  one 's  kept  only  by  women  ? "  His  sur 
prise  and  his  verbal  emphasis  rang  out  so  clear  in  the 
still  street  that  Strether  winced  till  he  remembered 
the  safety  of  their  English  speech.  "Is  that,"  the 
young  man  demanded,  "  what  they  think  at  Woollett  ?" 
At  the  good  faith  in  the  question  Strether  had  changed 
colour,  feeling  that,  as  he  would  have  said,  he  had  put 
his  foot  in  it.  He  had  appeared  stupidly  to  misrepre 
sent  what  they  thought  at  Woollett ;  but  before  he  had 
time  to  rectify  Chad  again  was  upon  him.  "I  must 
say  then  you  show  a  low  mind ! " 

It  so  fell  in,  unhappily  for  Strether,  with  that  re- 
159 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

flexion  of  his  own  prompted  in  him  by  the  pleasant  air 
of  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes,  that  its  disconcerting 
force  was  rather  unfairly  great.  It  was  a  dig  that, 
administered  by  himself — and  administered  even  to 
poor  Mrs.  Newsome  —  was  no  more  than  salutary; 
but  administered  by  Chad  —  and  quite  logically  —  it 
came  nearer  drawing  blood.  They  bad  nt  a  low  mind — 
nor  any  approach  to  one ;  yet  incontestably  they  had 
worked,  and  with  a  certain  smugness,  on  a  basis  that 
might  be  turned  against  them.  Chad  had  at  any  rate 
pulled  his  visitor  up;  he  had  even  pulled  up  his  ad 
mirable  mother;  he  had  absolutely,  by  a  turn  of  the 
wrist  and  a  jerk  of  the  far-flung  noose,  pulled  up,  in  a 
bunch,  Woollett  browsing  in  its  pride.  There  was  no 
doubt  Woollett  bad  insisted  on  his  coarseness;  and 
what  he  at  present  stood  there  for  in  the  sleeping  street 
was,  by  his  manner  of  striking  the  other  note,  to  make 
of  such  insistence  a  preoccupation  compromising  to 
the  insisters.  It  was  exactly  as  if  they  had  imputed  to 
him  a  vulgarity  that  he  had  by  a  mere  gesture  caused 
to  fall  from  him.  The  devil  of  the  case  was  that 
Strether  felt  it,  by  the  same  stroke,  as  falling  straight 
upon  himself.  He  had  been  wondering  a  minute  ago 
if  the  boy  were  n't  a  Pagan,  and  he  found  himself  won 
dering  now  if  he  were  n't  by  chance  a  gentleman.  It 
did  n't  in  the  least,  on  the  spot,  spring  up  helpfully 
for  him  that  a  person  could  n't  at  the  same  time  be 
both.  There  was  nothing  at  this  moment  in  the  air 
to  challenge  the  combination ;  there  was  everything  to 
give  it  on  the  contrary  something  of  a  flourish.  It 
struck  Strether  into  the  bargain  as  doing  something 
to  meet  the  most  difficult  of  the  questions ;  though  per- 

160 


BOOK  FOURTH 

haps  indeed  only  by  substituting  another.  Would  n't 
it  be  precisely  by  having  learned  to  be  a  gentleman 
that  he  had  mastered  the  consequent  trick  of  looking 
so  well  that  one  could  scarce  speak  to  him  straight  ? 
But  what  in  the  world  was  the  clue  to  such  a  prime 
producing  cause  ?  There  were  too  many  clues  then 
that  Strether  still  lacked,  and  these  clues  to  clues  were 
among  them.  What  it  accordingly  amounted  to  for 
him  was  that  he  had  to  take  full  in  the  face  a  fresh  at 
tribution  of  ignorance.  He  had  grown  used  by  this 
time  to  reminders,  especially  from  his  own  lips,  of 
what  he  did  n't  know;  but  he  had  borne  them  because 
in  the  first  place  they  were  private  and  because  in  the 
second  they  practically  conveyed  a  tribute.  He  did  n't 
know  what  was  bad,  and  —  as  others  did  n't  know 
how  little  he  knew  it  —  he  could  put  up  with  his  state. 
But  if  he  did  n't  know,  in  so  important  a  particular, 
what  was  good,  Chad  at  least  was  now  aware  he 
did  n't;  and  that,  for  some  reason,  affected  our  friend 
as  curiously  public.  It  was  in  fact  an  exposed  condi 
tion  that  the  young  man  left  him  in  long  enough  for 
him  to  feel  its  chill  —  till  he  saw  fit,  in  a  word,  gener 
ously  again  to  cover  him.  This  last  was  in  truth  what 
Chad  quite  gracefully  did.  But  he  did  it  as  with  a 
simple  thought  that  met  the  whole  of  the  case.  "  Oh 
I  'm  all  right ! "  It  was  what  Strether  had  rather  be- 
wilderedly  to  go  to  bed  on. 


II 


IT  really  looked  true  moreover  from  the  way  Chad 
was  to  behave  after  this.  He  was  full  of  attentions  to 
his  mother's  ambassador;  in  spite  of  which,  all  the 
while,  the  latter's  other  relations  rather  remarkably 
contrived  to  assert  themselves.  Strether's  sittings  pen 
in  hand  with  Mrs.  Newsome  up  in  his  own  room  were 
broken,  yet  they  were  richer;  and  they  were  more  than 
ever  interspersed  with  the  hours  in  which  he  reported 
himself,  in  a  different  fashion,  but  with  scarce  less 
earnestness  and  fulness,  to  Maria  Gostrey.  Now  that, 
as  he  would  have  expressed  it,  he  had  really  something 
to  talk  about  he  found  himself,  in  respect  to  any  odd 
ity  that  might  reside  for  him  in  the  double  connexion, 
at  once  more  aware  and  more  indifferent.  He  had 
been  fine  to  Mrs.  Newsome  about  his  useful  friend, 
but  it  had  begun  to  haunt  his  imagination  that  Chad, 
taking  up  again  for  her  benefit  a  pen  too  long  disused, 
might  possibly  be  finer.  It  would  n't  at  all  do,  he  saw, 
that  anything  should  come  up  for  him  at  Chad's  hand 
but  what  specifically  was  to  have  come;  the  greatest 
divergence  from  which  would  be  precisely  the  element 
of  any  lubrication  of  their  intercourse  by  levity.  It 
was  accordingly  to  forestall  such  an  accident  that  he 
frankly  put  before  the  young  man  the  several  facts, 
just  as  they  had  occurred,  of  his  funny  alliance.  He 
spoke  of  these  facts,  pleasantly  and  obligingly,  as  "the 
whole  story,"  and  felt  that  he  might  qualify  the  alliance 

162 


BOOK  FOURTH 

as  funny  if  he  remained  sufficiently  grave  about  it. 
He  flattered  himself  that  he  even  exaggerated  the 
wild  freedom  of  his  original  encounter  with  the  won 
derful  lady;  he  was  scrupulously  definite  about  the 
absurd  conditions  in  which  they  had  made  acquaint 
ance  —  their  having  picked  each  other  up  almost  in 
the  street;  and  he  had  (finest  inspiration  of  all !)  a  con 
ception  of  carrying  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country 
by  showing  surprise  at  the  enemy's  ignorance. 

He  had  always  had  a  notion  that  this  last  was  the 
grand  style  of  fighting;  the  greater  therefore  the  reason 
for  it,  as  he  could  n't  remember  that  he  had  ever  be 
fore  fought  in  the  grand  style.  Every  one,  according 
to  this,  knew  Miss  Gostrey :  how  came  it  Chad  did  n't 
know  her  ?  The  difficulty,  the  impossibility,  was  really 
to  escape  it ;  Strether  put  on  him,  by  what  he  took  for 
granted,  the  burden  of  proof  of  the  contrary.  This 
tone  was  so  far  successful  as  that  Chad  quite  appeared 
to  recognise  her  as  a  person  whose  fame  had  reached 
him,  but  against  his  acquaintance  with  whom  much 
mischance  had  worked.  He  made  the  point  at  the 
same  time  that  his  social  relations,  such  as  they  could 
be  called,  were  perhaps  not  to  the  extent  Strether 
supposed  with  the  rising  flood  of  their  compatriots. 
He  hinted  at  his  having  more  and  more  given  way  to 
a  different  principle  of  selection ;  the  moral  of  which 
seemed  to  be  that  he  went  about  little  in  the  "  colony." 
For  the  moment  certainly  he  had  quite  another  interest. 
It  was  deep,  what  he  understood;  and  Strether,  for 
himself,  could  only  so  observe  it.  He  could  n't  see  as 
yet  how  deep.  Might  he  not  all  too  soon !  For  there 
was  really  too  much  of  their  question  that  Chad  had 

163 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

already  committed  himself  to  liking.  He  liked,  to  be 
gin  with,  his  prospective  stepfather;  which  was  dis 
tinctly  what  had  not  been  on  the  cards.  His  hating 
him  was  the  untowardness  for  which  Strether  had 
been  best  prepared;  he  had  n't  expected  the  boy's  ac 
tual  form  to  give  him  more  to  do  than  his  imputed.  It 
gave  him  more  through  suggesting  that  he  must  some 
how  make  up  to  himself  for  not  being  sure  he  was 
sufficiently  disagreeable.  That  had  really  been  present 
to  him  as  his  only  way  to  be  sure  he  was  sufficiently 
thorough.  The  point  was  that  if  Chad's  tolerance  of 
his  thoroughness  were  insincere,  were  but  the  best 
of  devices  for  gaining  time,  it  none  the  less  did  treat 
everything  as  tacitly  concluded. 

That  seemed  at  the  end  of  ten  days  the  upshot 
of  the  abundant,  the  recurrent  talk  through  which 
Strether  poured  into  him  all  it  concerned  him  to  know, 
put  him  in  full  possession  of  facts  and  figures.  Never 
cutting  these  colloquies  short  by  a  minute,  Chad  be 
haved,  looked  and  spoke  as  if  he  were  rather  heavily, 
perhaps  even  a  trifle  gloomily,  but  none  the  less  fun 
damentally  and  comfortably  free.  He  made  no  crude 
profession  of  eagerness  to  yield,  but  he  asked  the  most 
intelligent  questions,  probed,  at  moments,  abruptly, 
even  deeper  than  his  friend's  layer  of  information, 
justified  by  these  touches  the  native  estimate  of  his 
latent  stuff,  and  had  in  every  way  the  air  of  trying  to 
live,  reflectively,  into  the  square  bright  picture.  He 
walked  up  and  down  in  front  of  this  production,  so 
ciably  took  Strether's  arm  at  the  points  at  which  he 
stopped,  surveyed  it  repeatedly  from  the  right  and 
from  the  left,  inclined  a  critical  head  to  either  quarter, 

164 


BOOK  FOURTH 

and,  while  he  puffed  a  still  more  critical  cigarette,  an 
imadverted  to  his  companion  on  this  passage  and  that. 
Strether  sought  relief —  there  were  hours  when  he  re 
quired  it  —  in  repeating  himself;  it  was  in  truth  not 
to  be  blinked  that  Chad  had  a  way.  The  main  ques 
tion  as  yet  was  of  what  it  was  a  way  to.  It  made  vul 
gar  questions  no  more  easy;  but  that  was  unimport 
ant  when  all  questions  save  those  of  his  own  asking 
had  dropped.  That  he  was  free  was  answer  enough, 
and  it  was  n't  quite  ridiculous  that  this  freedom 
should  end  by  presenting  itself  as  what  was  difficult  to 
move.  His  changed  state,  his  lovely  home,  his  beauti 
ful  things,  his  easy  talk,  his  very  appetite  for  Strether, 
insatiable  and,  when  all  was  said,  flattering  —  what 
were  such  marked  matters  all  but  the  notes  of  his  free 
dom  ?  He  had  the  effect  of  making  a  sacrifice  of  it  just 
in  these  handsome  forms  to  his  visitor;  which  was 
mainly  the  reason  the  visitor  was  privately,  for  the 
time,  a  little  out  of  countenance.  Strether  was  at  this 
period  again  and  again  thrown  back  on  a  felt  need  to 
remodel  somehow  his  plan.  He  fairly  caught  himself 
shooting  rueful  glances,  shy  looks  of  pursuit,  toward 
the  embodied  influence,  the  definite  adversary,  who 
had  by  a  stroke  of  her  own  failed  him  and  on  a  fond 
theory  of  whose  palpable  presence  he  had,  under  Mrs. 
Newsome's  inspiration,  altogether  proceeded.  He 
had  once  or  twice,  in  secret,  literally  expressed  the 
irritated  wish  that  she  would  come  out  and  find  her. 
He  could  n't  quite  yet  force  it  upon  Woollett  that 
such  a  career,  such  a  perverted  young  life,  showed 
after  all  a  certain  plausible  side,  did  in  the  case  before 
them  flaunt  something  like  an  impunity  for  the  social 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

man ;  but  he  could  at  least  treat  himself  to  the  state 
ment  that  would  prepare  him  for  the  sharpest  echo. 
This  echo  —  as  distinct  over  there  in  the  dry  thin  air 
as  some  shrill  "heading"  above  a  column  of  print  — 
seemed  to  reach  him  even  as  he  wrote.  "He  says 
there's  no  woman,"  he  could  hear  Mrs.  Newsome 
report,  in  capitals  almost  of  newspaper  size,  to  Mrs. 
Pocock;  and  he  could  focus  in  Mrs.  Pocock  the  re 
sponse  of  the  reader  of  the  journal.  He  could  see  in 
the  younger  lady's  face  the  earnestness  of  her  atten 
tion  and  catch  the  full  scepticism  of  her  but  slightly 
delayed  "What  is  there  then  ? "  Just  so  he  could  again 
as  little  miss  the  mother's  clear  decision:  "There's 
plenty  of  disposition,  no  doubt,  to  pretend  there 
is  n't."  Strether  had,  after  posting  his  letter,  the 
whole  scene  out;  and  it  was  a  scene  during  which, 
coming  and  going,  as  befell,  he  kept  his  eye  not  least 
upon  the  daughter.  He  had  his  fine  sense  of  the  con 
viction  Mrs.  Pocock  would  take  occasion  to  reaffirm 
—  a  conviction  bearing,  as  he  had  from  the  first  deeply 
divined  it  to  bear,  on  Mr.  Strether's  essential  inapti 
tude.  She  had  looked  him  in  his  conscious  eyes 
even  before  he  sailed,  and  that  she  did  n't  believe  be 
would  find  the  woman  had  been  written  in  her  book. 
Had  n't  she  at  the  best  but  a  scant  faith  in  his  ability 
to  find  women  ?  It  was  n't  even  as  if  he  had  found  her 
mother  —  so  much  more,  to  her  discrimination,  had 
her  mother  performed  the  finding.  Her  mother  had, 
in  a  case  her  private  judgement  of  which  remained 
educative  of  Mrs.  Pocock's  critical  sense,  found  the 
man.  The  man  owed  his  unchallenged  state,  in  gen 
eral,  to  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Newsome' s  discoveries  were 

166 


BOOK  FOURTH 

accepted  at  Woollett;  but  he  knew  in  his  bones,  our 
friend  did,  how  almost  irresistibly  Mrs.  Pocock  would 
now  be  moved  to  show  what  she  thought  of  his  own. 
Give  her  a  free  hand,  would  be  the  moral,  and  the 
woman  would  soon  be  found. 

His  impression  of  Miss  Gostrey  after  her  introduc 
tion  to  Chad  was  meanwhile  an  impression  of  a  per 
son  almost  unnaturally  on  her  guard.  He  struck 
himself  as  at  first  unable  to  extract  from  her  what  he 
wished ;  though  indeed  of  what  he  wished  at  this  spe 
cial  juncture  he  would  doubtless  have  contrived  to 
make  but  a  crude  statement.  It  sifted  and  settled 
nothing  to  put  to  her,  tout  betement,  as  she  often  said, 
"  Do  you  like  him,  eh  ? "  —  thanks  to  his  feeling  it 
actually  the  least  of  his  needs  to  heap  up  the  evidence 
in  the  young  man's  favour.  He  repeatedly  knocked 
at  her  door  to  let  her  have  it  afresh  that  Chad's  case 
—  whatever  else  of  minor  interest  it  might  yield  — 
was  first  and  foremost  a  miracle  almost  monstrous. 
It  was  the  alteration  of  the  entire  man,  and  was  so 
signal  an  instance  that  nothing  else,  for  the  intelligent 
observer,  could  —  could  it  ?  —  signify.  "  It 's  a  plot," 
he  declared  —  "there's  more  in  it  than  meets  the 
eye."  He  gave  the  rein  to  his  fancy.  "  It 's  a  plant ! " 
His  fancy  seemed  to  please  her.  "  Whose  then  ? " 
"Well,  the  party  responsible  is,  I  suppose,  the  fate 
that  waits  for  one,  the  dark  doom  that  rides.  What  I 
mean  is  that  with  such  elements  one  can't  count.  I  've 
but  my  poor  individual,  my  modest  human  means. 
It  is  n't  playing  the  game  to  turn  on  the  uncanny.  All 
one's  energy  goes  to  facing  it,  to  tracking  it.  One 
wants,  confound  it,  don't  you  see  ? "  he  confessed  with 

167 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

a  queer  face  —  "one  wants  to  enjoy  anything  so  rare. 
Call  it  then  life  "  —  he  puzzled  it  out  —  "  call  it  poor 
dear  old  life  simply  that  springs  the  surprise.  Nothing 
alters  the  fact  that  the  surprise  is  paralysing,  or  at  any 
rate  engrossing  —  all,  practically,  hang  it,  that  one 
sees,  that  one  can  see." 

Her  silences  were  never  barren,  nor  even  dull.  "  Is 
that  what  you  've  written  home  ? " 

He  tossed  it  off.    "  Oh  dear,  yes ! " 

She  had  another  pause  while,  across  her  carpets,  he 
had  another  walk.  "  If  you  don't  look  out  you  '11  have 
them  straight  over." 

"Oh  but  I've  said  he'll  go  back." 

"And  will  he?"  Miss  Gostrey  asked. 

The  special  tone  of  it  made  him,  pulling  up,  look  at 
her  long.  "What's  that  but  just  the  question  I've 
spent  treasures  of  patience  and  ingenuity  in  giving 
you,  by  the  sight  of  him  —  after  everything  had  led 
up  —  every  facility  to  answer  ?  What  is  it  but  just 
the  thing  I  came  here  to-day  to  get  out  of  you  ?  Will 
h  ?" 

"No  —  he  won't,"  she  said  at  last.  "He's  not 
free." 

The  air  of  it  held  him.  "Then  you  Ve  all  the  while 
known  —  ? " 

"I've  known  nothing  but  what  I've  seen;  and  I 
wonder,"  she  declared  with  some  impatience,  "that 
you  did  n't  see  as  much.  It  was  enough  to  be  with  him 
there—" 

"  In  the  box  ?  Yes,"  he  rather  blankly  urged. 

"Well  — to  feel  sure." 

"Sure  of  what?" 

168 


BOOK  FOURTH 

She  got  up  from  her  chair,  at  this,  with  a  nearer  ap 
proach  than  she  had  ever  yet  shown  to  dismay  at  his 
dimness.  She  even,  fairly  pausing  for  it,  spoke  with  a 
shade  of  pity.  "  Guess ! " 

It  was  a  shade,  fairly,  that  brought  a  flush  into  his 
face ;  so  that  for  a  moment,  as  they  waited  together, 
their  difference  was  between  them.  "  You  mean  that 
just  your  hour  with  him  told  you  so  much  of  his  story  ? 
Very  good ;  I  'm  not  such  a  fool,  on  my  side,  as  that  I 
don't  understand  you,  or  as  that  I  did  n't  in  some  de 
gree  understand  him.  That  he  has  done  what  he 
liked  most  is  n't,  among  any  of  us,  a  matter  the  least 
in  dispute.  There's  equally  little  question  at  this  time 
of  day  of  what  it  is  he  does  like  most.  But  I  'm  not 
talking,"  he  reasonably  explained,  "of  any  mere 
wretch  he  may  still  pick  up.  I  'm  talking  of  some  per 
son  who  in  his  present  situation  may  have  held  her 
own,  may  really  have  counted." 

"That's  exactly  what  I  am!"  said  Miss  Gostrey. 
But  she  as  quickly  made  her  point.  "I  thought  you 
thought  —  or  that  they  think  at  Woollett  —  that 
that's  what  mere  wretches  necessarily  do.  Mere 
wretches  necessarily  don't!"  she  declared  with  spirit. 
"There  must,  behind  every  appearance  to  the  con 
trary,  still  be  somebody  —  somebody  who 's  not  a 
mere  wretch,  since  we  accept  the  miracle.  What  else 
but  such  a  somebody  can  such  a  miracle  be  ? " 

He  took  it  in.  "Because  the  fact  itself  is  the 
woman  ? " 

"A  woman.  Some  woman  or  other.  It 's  one  of  the 
things  that  have  to  be." 

"  But  you  mean  then  at  least  a  good  one." 
169 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"A  good  woman  ?"  She  threw  up  her  arms  with  a 
laugh.  "I  should  call  her  excellent!" 

"Then  why  does  he  deny  her  ?" 

Miss  Gostrey  thought  a  moment.  "Because  she's 
too  good  to  admit!  Don't  you  see,"  she  went  on, 
"  how  she  accounts  for  him  ? " 

Strether  clearly,  more  and  more,  did  see ;  yet  it  made 
him  also  see  other  things.  "  But  is  n't  what  we  want 
that  he  shall  account  for  her?" 

"Well,  he  does.  What  you  have  before  you  is  his 
way.  You  must  forgive  him  if  it  is  n't  quite  outspoken. 
In  Paris  such  debts  are  tacit." 

Strether  could  imagine;  but  still — !  "Even  when 
the  woman 's  good  ? " 

Again  she  laughed  out.  "Yes,  and  even  when  the 
man  is !  There 's  always  a  caution  in  such  cases,"  she 
more  seriously  explained  —  "for  what  it  may  seem  to 
show.  There's  nothing  that's  taken  as  showing  so 
much  here  as  sudden  unnatural  goodness." 

"Ah  then  you  're  speaking  now,"  Strether  said,  "of 
people  who  are  not  nice." 

"I  delight,"  she  replied,  "in  your  classifications. 
But  do  you  want  me,"  she  asked,  "to  give  you  in  the 
matter,  on  this  ground,  the  wisest  advice  I  'm  capable 
of?  Don't  consider  her,  don't  judge  her  at  all  in  her 
self.  Consider  her  and  judge  her  only  in  Chad." 

He  had  the  courage  at  least  of  his  companion's 
logic.  "  Because  then  I  shall  like  her  ? "  He  almost 
looked,  with  his  quick  imagination,  as  if  he  already 
did,  though  seeing  at  once  also  the  full  extent  of  how 
little  it  would  suit  his  book.  "  But  is  that  what  I  came 
out  for?" 

170 


BOOK  FOURTH 

She  had  to  confess  indeed  that  it  was  n't.  But  there 
was  something  else.  "Don't  make  up  your  mind. 
There  are  all  sorts  of  things.  You  have  n't  seen  him 
all." 

This  on  his  side  Strether  recognised ;  but  his  acute- 
ness  none  the  less  showed  him  the  danger.  "  Yes,  but 
if  the  more  I  see  the  better  he  seems  ? " 

Well,  she  found  something.  "That  may  be —  but 
his  disavowal  of  her  is  n't,  all  the  same,  pure  con 
sideration.  There's  a  hitch."  She  made  it  out.  "It's 
the  effort  to  sink  her." 

Strether  winced  at  the  image.   "To  'sink'  —  ?" 

"Well,  I  mean  there's  a  struggle,  and  a  part  of  it  is 
just  what  he  hides.  Take  time  —  that 's  the  only  way 
not  to  make  some  mistake  that  you  '11  regret.  Then 
you  '11  see.  He  does  really  want  to  shake  her  off." 

Our  friend  had  by  this  time  so  got  into  the  vision 
that  he  almost  gasped.  "After  all  she  has  done  for 
him?" 

Miss  Gostrey  gave  him  a  look  which  broke  the  next 
moment  into  a  wonderful  smile.  "  He 's  not  so  good  as 
you  think!" 

They  remained  with  him,  these  words,  promising 
him,  in  their  character  of  warning,  considerable  help; 
but  the  support  he  tried  to  draw  from  them  found 
itself  on  each  renewal  of  contact  with  Chad  defeated 
by  something  else.  What  could  it  be,  this  disconcert 
ing  force,  he  a^ked  himself,  but  the  sense,  constantly 
renewed,  that  Chad  was  —  quite  in  fact  insisted  on 
being  —  as  good  as  he  thought  ?  It  seemed  somehow 
as  if  he  could  n't  but  be  as  good  from  the  moment  he 
was  n't  as  bad.  There  was  a  succession  of  days  at  all 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

events  when  contact  with  him  —  and  in  its  immediate 
effect,  as  if  it  could  produce  no  other  —  elbowed  out 
of  Strether' s  consciousness  everything  but  itself.  Little 
Bilham  once  more  pervaded  the  scene,  but  little 
Bilham  became  even  in  a  higher  degree  than  he  had 
originally  been  one  of  the  numerous  forms  of  the  in 
clusive  relation;  a  consequence  promoted,  to  our 
friend's  sense,  by  two  or  three  incidents  with  which 
we  have  yet  to  make  acquaintance.  Waymarsh  him 
self,  for  the  occasion,  was  drawn  into  the  eddy;  it 
absolutely,  though  but  temporarily,  swallowed  him 
down,  and  there  were  days  when  Strether  seemed  to 
bump  against  him  as  a  sinking  swimmer  might  brush 
a  submarine  object.  The  fathomless  medium  held 
them  —  Chad's  manner  was  the  fathomless  medium; 
and  our  friend  felt  as  if  they  passed  each  other,  in  their 
deep  immersion,  with  the  round  impersonal  eye  of 
silent  fish.  It  was  practically  produced  between  them 
that  Waymarsh  was  giving  him  then  his  chance;  and 
the  shade  of  discomfort  that  Strether  drew  from  the 
allowance  resembled  not  a  little  the  embarrassment 
he  had  known  at  school,  as  a  boy,  when  members  of 
his  family  had  been  present  at  exhibitions.  He  could 
perform  before  strangers,  but  relatives  were  fatal,  and 
it  was  now  as  if,  comparatively,  Waymarsh  were  a 
relative.  He  seemed  to  hear  him  say  "Strike  up 
then ! "  and  to  enjoy  a  foretaste  of  conscientious  do 
mestic  criticism.  He  bad  struck  up,  so  far  as  he  actu 
ally  could ;  Chad  knew  by  this  time  in  profusion  what 
he  wanted;  and  what  vulgar  violence  did  his  fellow 
pilgrim  expect  of  him  when  he  had  really  emptied  his 
mind  ?  It  went  somehow  to  and  fro  that  what  poor 

172 


BOOK  FOURTH 

Waymarsh  meant  was  "  I  told  you  so  —  that  you  'd 
lose  your  immortal  soul!"  but  it  was  also  fairly  ex 
plicit  that  Strether  had  his  own  challenge  and  that, 
since  they  must  go  to  the  bottom  of  things,  he  wasted 
no  more  virtue  in  watching  Chad  than  Chad  wasted 
in  watching  him.  His  dip  for  duty's  sake  —  where 
was  it  worse  than  Waymarsh's  own  ?  For  he  need  n't 
have  stopped  resisting  and  refusing,  need  n't  have 
parleyed,  at  that  rate,  with  the  foe. 

The  strolls  over  Paris  to  see  something  or  call 
somewhere  were  accordingly  inevitable  and  natural, 
and  the  late  sessions  in  the  wondrous  troisieme,  the 
lovely  home,  when  men  dropped  in  and  the  picture 
composed  more  suggestively  through  the  haze  of 
tobacco,  of  music  more  or  less  good  and  of  talk  more 
or  less  polyglot,  were  on  a  principle  not  to  be  distin 
guished  from  that  of  the  mornings  and  the  afternoons. 
Nothing,  Strether  had  to  recognise  as  he  leaned  back 
and  smoked,  could  well  less  resemble  a  scene  of  vio 
lence  than  even  the  liveliest  of  these  occasions.  They 
were  occasions  of  discussion,  none  the  less,  and 
Strether  had  never  in  his  life  heard  so  many  opinions 
on  so  many  subjects.  There  were  opinions  atWoollett, 
but  only  on  three  or  four.  The  differences  were  there 
to  match;  if  they  were  doubtless  deep,  though  few, 
they  were  quiet  —  they  were,  as  might  be  said,  almost 
as  shy  as  if  people  had  been  ashamed  of  them.  People 
showed  little  diffidence  about  such  things,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes,  and  were 
so  far  from  being  ashamed  of  them  —  or  indeed  of 
anything  else  —  that  they  often  seemed  to  have  in 
vented  them  to  avert  those  agreements  that  destroy 

173 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

the  taste  of  talk.  No  one  had  ever  done  that  at 
Woollett,  though  Strether  could  remember  times 
when  he  himself  had  been  tempted  to  it  without  quite 
knowing  why.  He  saw  why  at  present  —  he  had  but 
wanted  to  promote  intercourse. 

These,  however,  were  but  parenthetic  memories; 
and  the  turn  taken  by  his  affair  on  the  whole  was  posi 
tively  that  if  his  nerves  were  on  the  stretch  it  was 
because  he  missed  violence.  When  he  asked  himself 
if  none  would  then,  in  connexion  with  it,  ever  come 
at  all,  he  might  almost  have  passed  as  wondering  how 
to  provoke  it.  It  would  be  too  absurd  if  such  a  vision 
as  that  should  have  to  be  invoked  for  relief;  it  was 
already  marked  enough  as  absurd  that  he  should 
actually  have  begun  wTith  flutters  and  dignities  on  the 
score  of  a  single  accepted  meal.  What  sort  of  a  brute 
had  he  expected  Chad  to  be,  anyway  ?  —  Strether  had 
occasion  to  make  the  enquiry  but  was  careful  to  make 
it  in  private.  He  could  himself,  comparatively  recent 
as  it  was  —  it  was  truly  but  the  fact  of  a  few  days 
since  —  focus  his  primal  crudity;  but  he  would  on  the 
approach  of  an  observer,  as  if  handling  an  illicit  pos 
session,  have  slipped  the  reminiscence  out  of  sight. 
There  were  echoes  of  it  still  in  Mrs.  Newsome's  letters, 
and  there  were  moments  when  these  echoes  made  him 
exclaim  on  her  want  of  tact.  He  blushed  of  course,  at 
once,  still  more  for  the  explanation  than  for  the 
ground  of  it :  it  came  to  him  in  time  to  save  his  man 
ners  that  she  could  n't  at  the  best  become  tactful  as 
quickly  as  he.  Her  tact  had  to  reckon  with  the  Atlan 
tic  Ocean,  the  General  Post-Office  and  the  extravag 
ant  curve  of  the  globe. 

174 


BOOK  FOURTH 

Chad  had  one  day  offered  tea  at  the  Boulevard 
Malesherbes  to  a  chosen  few,  a  group  again  including 
the  unobscured  Miss  Barrace;  and  Strether  had  on 
coming  out  walked  away  with  the  acquaintance 
whom  in  his  letters  to  Mrs.  Newsome  he  always  spoke 
of  as  the  little  artist-man.  He  had  had  full  occasion  to 
mention  him  as  the  other  party,  so  oddly,  to  the  only 
close  personal  alliance  observation  had  as  yet  de 
tected  in  Chad's  existence.  Little  Bilham's  way  this 
afternoon  was  not  Strether's,  but  he  had  none  the  less 
kindly  come  with  him,  and  it  was  somehow  a  part  of 
his  kindness  that  as  it  had  sadly  begun  to  rain  they 
suddenly  found  themselves  seated  for  conversation  at 
a  cafe  in  which  they  had  taken  refuge.  He  had  passed 
no  more  crowded  hour  in  Chad's  society  than  the  one 
just  ended;  he  had  talked  with  Miss  Barrace,  who 
had  reproached  him  with  not  having  come  to  see  her, 
and  he  had  above  all  hit  on  a  happy  thought  for  caus 
ing  Waymarsh's  tension  to  relax.  Something  might 
possibly  be  extracted  for  the  latter  from  the  idea  of 
his  success  with  that  lady,  whose  quick  apprehension 
of  what  might  amuse  her  had  given  Strether  a  free 
hand.  What  had  she  meant  if  not  to  ask  whether  she 
could  n't  help  him  with  his  splendid  encumbrance, 
and  might  n't  the  sacred  rage  at  any  rate  be  kept  a 
little  in  abeyance  by  thus  creating  for  his  comrade's 
mind  even  in  a  world  of  irrelevance  the  possibility  of  a 
relation  ?  What  was  it  but  a  relation  to  be  regarded  as 
so  decorative  and,  in  especial,  on  the  strength  of  it,  to 
be  whirled  away,  amid  flounces  and  feathers,  in  a 
coupe  lined,  by  what  Strether  could  make  out,  with 
dark  blue  brocade  ?  He  himself  had  never  been 

175 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

whirled  away  —  never  at  least  in  a  coupe  and  behind 
a  footman ;  he  had  driven  with  Miss  Gostrey  in  cabs, 
with  Mrs.  Pocock,  a  few  times,  in  an  open  buggy,  with 
Mrs.  Newsome  in  a  four-seated  cart  and,  occasionally 
up  at  the  mountains,  on  a  buckboard ;  but  his  friend's 
actual  adventure  transcended  his  personal  experience. 
He  now  showed  his  companion  soon  enough  indeed 
how  inadequate,  as  a  general  monitor,  this  last  queer 
quantity  could  once  more  feel  itself. 

"  What  game  under  the  sun  is  he  playing  ? "  He 
signified  the  next  moment  that  his  allusion  was  not  to 
the  fat  gentleman  immersed  in  dominoes  on  whom  his 
eyes  had  begun  by  resting,  but  to  their  host  of  the 
previous  hour,  as  to  whom,  there  on  the  velvet  bench, 
with  a  final  collapse  of  all  consistency,  he  treated  him 
self  to  the  comfort  of  indiscretion.  "  Where  do  you  see 
him  come  out  ?  " 

Little  Bilham,  in  meditation,  looked  at  him  with  a 
kindness  almost  paternal.  "Don't  you  like  it  over 
here?" 

Strether  laughed  out  —  for  the  tone  was  indeed 
droll ;  he  let  himself  go.  "  What  has  that  to  do  with  it  ? 
The  only  thing  I  've  any  business  to  like  is  to  feel  that 
I  'm  moving  him.  That 's  why  I  ask  you  whether  you 
believe  I  am  ?  Is  the  creature  "  —  and  he  did  his  best 
to  show  that  he  simply  wished  to  ascertain  —  "  hon 
est?" 

His  companion  looked  responsible,  but  looked  it 
through  a  small  dim  smile.  "What  creature  do  you 
mean  ? " 

It  was  on  this  that  they  did  have  for  a  little  a  mute 
interchange.  "  Is  it  untrue  that  he 's  free  ?  How 

176 


BOOK  FOURTH 

then,"  Strether  asked  wondering,  "does  he  arrange 
his  life?" 

"Is  the  creature  you  mean  Chad  himself?"  little 
Bilham  said. 

Strether  here,  with  a  rising  hope,  just  thought,  "We 
must  take  one  of  them  at  a  time."  But  his  coherence 
lapsed.  "Is  there  some  woman  ?  Of  whom  he 's  really 
afraid  of  course  I  mean  —  or  who  does  with  him  what 
she  likes." 

"  It 's  awfully  charming  of  you,"  Bilham  presently 
remarked,  "not  to  have  asked  me  that  before." 

"Oh  I'm  not  fit  for  my  job!" 

The  exclamation  had  escaped  our  friend,  but  it 
made  little  Bilham  more  deliberate.  "Chad's  a  rare 
case!"  he  luminously  observed.  "He's  awfully 
changed,"  he  added. 

"Then  you  see  it  too?" 

"The  way  he  has  improved?  Oh  yes  —  I  think 
every  one  must  see  it.  But  I  'm  not  sure,"  said  little 
Bilham,  "that  I  did  n't  like  him  about  as  well  in  his 
other  state." 

"  Then  this  is  really  a  new  state  altogether  ? " 

"Well,"  the  young  man  after  a  moment  returned, 
"  I  'm  not  sure  he  was  really  meant  by  nature  to  be 
quite  so  good.  It 's  like  the  new  edition  of  an  old  book 
that  one  has  been  fond  of — revised  and  amended, 
brought  up  to  date,  but  not  quite  the  thing  one  knew 
and  loved.  However  that  may  be  at  all  events,"  he 
pursued,  "I  don't  think,  you  know,  that  he's  really 
playing,  as  you  call  it,  any  game.  I  believe  he  really 
wants  to  go  back  and  take  up  a  career.  He 's  capable 
of  one,  you  know,  that  will  improve  and  enlarge  him 

177 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

still  more.  He  won't  then,"  little  Bilham  continued  to 
remark,  "be  my  pleasant  well-rubbed  old-fashioned 
volume  at  all.  But  of  course  I  'm  beastly  immoral.  I  'm 
afraid  it  would  be  a  funny  world  altogether  —  a  world 
with  things  the  way  I  like  them.  I  ought,  I  dare  say, 
to  go  home  and  go  into  business  myself.  Only  I'd 
simply  rather  die  —  simply.  And  I  've  not  the  least 
difficulty  in  making  up  my  mind  not  to,  and  in  know 
ing  exactly  why,  and  in  defending  my  ground  against 
all  comers.  All  the  same,"  he  wound  up,  "I  assure 
you  I  don't  say  a  word  against  it  —  for  himself,  I  mean 
—  to  Chad.  I  seem  to  see  it  as  much  the  best  thing  for 
him.  You  see  he's  not  happy." 

"Do  I  ?"  —  Strether  stared.  "I've  been  supposing 
I  see  just  the  opposite  —  an  extraordinary  case  of  the 
equilibrium  arrived  at  and  assured." 

"Oh  there's  a  lot  behind  it." 

"Ah  there  you  are!"  Strether  exclaimed.  "That's 
just  what  I  want  to  get  at.  You  speak  of  your  familiar 
volume  altered  out  of  recognition.  Well,  who's  the 
editor?" 

Little  Bilham  looked  before  him  a  minute  in  si 
lence.  "He  ought  to  get  married.  That  would  do  it. 
And  he  wants  to." 

"Wants  to  marry  her?" 

Again  little  Bilham  waited,  and,  with  a  sense  that 
he  had  information,  Strether  scarce  knew  what  was 
coming.  "  He  wants  to  be  free.  He  is  n't  used,  you 
see,"  the  young  man  explained  in  his  lucid  way,  "to 
being  so  good." 

Strether  hesitated.  "Then  I  may  take  it  from  you 
that  he  is  good  ? " 

178 


BOOK  FOURTH 

His  companion  matched  his  pause,  but  making  it 
up  with  a  quiet  fulness.  "Do  take  it  from  me." 

"Well  then  why  isn't  he  free?  He  swears  to  me 
he  is,  but  meanwhile  does  nothing  —  except  of  course 
that  he 's  so  kind  to  me  —  to  prove  it ;  and  could  n't 
really  act  much  otherwise  if  he  were  n't.  My  question 
to  you  just  now  was  exactly  on  this  queer  impression 
of  his  diplomacy :  as  if  instead  of  really  giving  ground 
his  line  were  to  keep  me  on  here  and  set  me  a  bad 
example." 

As  the  half-hour  meanwhile  had  ebbed  Strether 
paid  his  score,  and  the  waiter  was  presently  in  the  act 
of  counting  out  change.  Our  friend  pushed  back  to 
him  a  fraction  of  it,  with  which,  after  an  emphatic 
recognition,  the  personage  in  question  retreated. 
"  You  give  too  much,"  little  Bilham  permitted  himself 
benevolently  to  observe. 

"  Oh  I  always  give  too  much ! "  Strether  helplessly 
sighed.  "But  you  don't,"  he  went  on  as  if  to  get 
quickly  away  from  the  contemplation  of  that  doom, 
"  answer  my  question.  Why  is  n't  he  free  ? " 

Little  Bilham  had  got  up  as  if  the  transaction  with 
the  waiter  had  been  a  signal,  and  had  already  edged 
out  between  the  table  and  the  divan.  The  effect  of 
this  was  that  a  minute  later  they  had  quitted  the  place, 
the  gratified  waiter  alert  again  at  the  open  door. 
Strether  had  found  himself  deferring  to  his  compan 
ion's  abruptness  as  to  a  hint  that  he  should  be  an 
swered  as  soon  as  they  were  more  isolated.  This  hap 
pened  when  after  a  few  steps  in  the  outer  air  they  had 
turned  the  next  corner.  There  our  friend  had  kept  it 
up.  "Why  is  n't  he  free  if  he's  good  ?" 

179 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Little  Bilham  looked  him  full  in  the  face.  "  Because 
it's  a  virtuous  attachment." 

This  had  settled  the  question  so  effectually  for  the 
time  —  that  is  for  the  next  few  days  —  that  it  had 
given  Strether  almost  a  new  lease  of  life.  It  must  be 
added  however  that,  thanks  to  his  constant  habit  of 
shaking  the  bottle  in  which  life  handed  him  the  wine 
of  experience,  he  presently  found  the  taste  of  the  lees 
rising  as  usual  into  his  draught.  His  imagination  had 
in  other  words  already  dealt  with  his  young  friend's 
assertion ;  of  which  it  had  made  something  that  suffi 
ciently  came  out  on  the  very  next  occasion  of  his  seeing 
Maria  Gostrey.  This  occasion  moreover  had  been  de 
termined  promptly  by  a  new  circumstance  —  a  cir 
cumstance  he  was  the  last  man  to  leave  her  for  a  day 
in  ignorance  of.  "When  I  said  to  him  last  night,"  he 
immediately  began,  "  that  without  some  definite  word 
from  him  now  that  will  enable  me  to  speak  to  them 
over  there  of  our  sailing  —  or  at  least  of  mine,  giving 
them  some  sort  of  date  —  my  responsibility  becomes 
uncomfortable  and  my  situation  awkward;  when  I 
said  that  to  him  what  do  you  think  was  his  reply  ? " 
And  then  as  she  this  time  gave  it  up :  "Why  that  he 
has  two  particular  friends,  two  ladies,  mother  and 
daughter,  about  to  arrive  in  Paris  —  coming  back 
from  an  absence;  and  that  he  wants  me  so  furiously 
to  meet  them,  know  them  and  like  them,  that  I  shall 
oblige  him  by  kindly  not  bringing  our  business  to  a 
crisis  till  he  has  had  a  chance  to  see  them  again  him 
self.  Is  that,"  Strether  enquired,  "  the  way  he 's  going 
to  try  to  get  off  ?  These  are  the  people,"  he  explained, 
"  that  he  must  have  gone  down  to  see  before  I  arrived. 

180 


BOOK  FOURTH 

They're  the  best  friends  he  has  in  the  world,  and  they 
take  more  interest  than  any  one  else  in  what  concerns 
him.  As  I  'm  his  next  best  he  sees  a  thousand  reasons 
why  we  should  comfortably  meet.  He  has  n't  broached 
the  question  sooner  because  their  return  was  un 
certain  —  seemed  in  fact  for  the  present  impossible. 
But  he  more  than  intimates  that  —  if  you  can  believe 
it  —  their  desire  to  make  my  acquaintance  has  had  to 
do  with  their  surmounting  difficulties." 

"They're  dying  to  see  you  ?"  Miss  Gostrey  asked. 

"Dying.  Of  course,"  said  Strether,  "they're  the 
virtuous  attachment."  He  had  already  told  her  about 
that  —  had  seen  her  the  day  after  his  talk  with  little 
Bilham ;  and  they  had  then  threshed  out  together  the 
bearing  of  the  revelation.  She  had  helped  him  to  put 
into  it  the  logic  in  which  little  Bilham  had  left  it 
slightly  deficient.  Strether  had  n't  pressed  him  as  to 
the  object  of  the  preference  so  unexpectedly  described ; 
feeling  in  the  presence  of  it,  with  one  of  his  irrepressi 
ble  scruples,  a  delicacy  from  which  he  had  in  the  quest 
of  the  quite  other  article  worked  himself  sufficiently 
free.  He  had  held  off,  as  on  a  small  principle  of  pride, 
from  permitting  his  young  friend  to  mention  a  name; 
wishing  to  make  with  this  the  great  point  that  Chad's 
virtuous  attachments  were  none  of  his  business.  He 
had  wanted  from  the  first  not  to  think  too  much  of  his 
dignity,  but  that  was  no  reason  for  not  allowing  it  any 
little  benefit  that  might  turn  up.  He  had  often  enough 
wondered  to  what  degree  his  interference  might  pass 
for  interested ;  so  that  there  was  no  want  of  luxury  in 
letting  it  be  seen  whenever  he  could  that  he  did  n't 
interfere.  That  had  of  course  at  the  same  time  not 

181 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

deprived  him  of  the  further  luxury  of  much  private 
astonishment;  which  however  he  had  reduced  to  some 
order  before  communicating  his  knowledge.  When  he 
had  done  this  at  last  it  was  with  the  remark  that,  sur 
prised  as  Miss  Gostrey  might,  like  himself,  at  first  be, 
she  would  probably  agree  with  him  on  reflexion  that 
such  an  account  of  the  matter  did  after  all  fit  the  con 
firmed  appearances.  Nothing  certainly,  on  all  the  in 
dications,  could  have  been  a  greater  change  for  him 
than  a  virtuous  attachment,  and  since  they  had  been 
in  search  of  the  "word"  as  the  French  called  it,  of 
that  change,  little  Bilham's  announcement  —  though 
so  long  and  so  oddly  delayed  —  would  serve  as  well  as 
another.  She  had  assured  Strether  in  fact  after  a 
pause  that  the  more  she  thought  of  it  the  more  it  did 
serve ;  and  yet  her  assurance  had  n't  so  weighed  with 
him  as  that  before  they  parted  he  had  n't  ventured  to 
challenge  her  sincerity.  Did  n't  she  believe  the  attach 
ment  was  virtuous  ?  —  he  had  made  sure  of  her  again 
with  the  aid  of  that  question.  The  tidings  he  brought 
her  on  this  second  occasion  were  moreover  such  as 
would  help  him  to  make  surer  still. 

She  showed  at  first  none  the  less  as  only  amused. 
"  You  say  there  are  two  ?  An  attachment  to  them 
both  then  would,  I  suppose,  almost  necessarily  be  in 
nocent." 

Our  friend  took  the  point,  but  he  had  his  clue. 
"  May  n't  he  be  still  in  the  stage  of  not  quite  know 
ing  which  of  them,  mother  or  daughter,  he  likes 
best?" 

She  gave  it  more  thought.  "Oh  it  must  be  the 
daughter  —  at  his  age." 

182 


BOOK  FOURTH 

"  Possibly.  Yet  what  do  we  know,"  Strether  asked, 
"about  hers  ?  She  may  be  old  enough." 

"  Old  enough  for  what  ? " 

"Why  to  marry  Chad.  That  may  be,  you  know, 
what  they  want.  And  if  Chad  wants  it  too,  and  little 
Bilham  wants  it,  and  even  we,  at  a  pinch,  could  do 
with  it  —  that  is  if  she  does  n't  prevent  repatriation  — 
why  it  may  be  plain  sailing  yet." 

It  was  always  the  case  for  him  in  these  counsels  that 
each  of  his  remarks,  as  it  came,  seemed  to  drop  into  a 
deeper  well.  He  had  at  all  events  to  wait  a  moment  to 
hear  the  slight  splash  of  this  one.  "  I  don't  see  why  if 
Mr.  Newsome  wants  to  marry  the  young  lady  he 
has  n't  already  done  it  or  has  n't  been  prepared  with 
some  statement  to  you  about  it.  And  if  he  both  wants 
to  marry  her  and  is  on  good  terms  with  them  why  is  n't 
he  ' free'?" 

Strether,  responsively,  wondered  indeed.  "  Perhaps 
the  girl  herself  does  n't  like  him." 

"Then  why  does  he  speak  of  them  to  you  as  he 
does?" 

Strether's  mind  echoed  the  question,  but  also  again 
met  it.  "Perhaps  it's  with  the  mother  he's  on  good 
terms." 

"As  against  the  daughter?" 

"Well,  if  she's  trying  to  persuade  the  daughter  to 
consent  to  him,  what  could  make  him  like  the  mother 
more  ?  Only,"  Strether  threw  out,  "why  should  n't 
the  daughter  consent  to  him  ? " 

"Oh,"  said  Miss  Gostrey,  "may  n't  it  be  that  every 
one  else  is  n't  quite  so  struck  with  him  as  you  ? " 

"  Does  n't  regard  him  you  mean  as  such  an  '  eligi- 

183 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

ble '  young  man  ?  Is  that  what  I  Ve  come  to  ? "  he 
audibly  and  rather  gravely  sought  to  know.  "How 
ever,"  he  went  on,  "his  marriage  is  what  his  mother 
most  desires  —  that  is  if  it  will  help.  And  ought  n't 
any  marriage  to  help  ?  They  must  want  him  "  —  he 
had  already  worked  it  out  —  "  to  be  better  off.  Al 
most  any  girl  he  may  marry  will  have  a  direct  interest 
in  his  taking  up  his  chances.  It  won't  suit  her  at  least 
that  he  shall  miss  them." 

Miss  Gostrey  cast  about.  "No  —  you  reason  well ! 
But  of  course  on  the  other  hand  there 's  always  dear 
old  Woollett  itself." 

"  Oh  yes,"  he  mused  —  "  there 's  always  dear  old 
Woollett  itself." 

She  waited  a  moment.  "The  young  lady  mayn't 
find  herself  able  to  swallow  that  quantity.  She  may 
think  it's  paying  too  much;  she  may  weigh  one  thing 
against  another." 

Strether,  ever  restless  in  such  debates,  took  a  vague 
turn.  "It  will  all  depend  on  who  she  is.  That  of 
course  —  the  proved  ability  to  deal  with  dear  old 
Woollett,  since  I  'm  sure  she  does  deal  with  it  —  is 
what  makes  so  strongly  for  Mamie." 

"Mamie?" 

He  stopped  short,  at  her  tone,  before  her ;  then, 
though  seeing  that  it  represented  not  vagueness,  but  a 
momentary  embarrassed  fulness,  let  his  exclamation 
come.  "  You  surely  have  n't  forgotten  about  Mamie ! " 

"No,  I  haven't  forgotten  about  Mamie,"  she 
smiled.  "There's  no  doubt  whatever  that  there's 
ever  so  much  to  be  said  for  her.  Mamie 's  my  girl ! " 
she  roundly  declared. 

184 


BOOK  FOURTH 

Strether  resumed  for  a  minute  his  walk.  "She's 
really  perfectly  lovely,  you  know.  Far  prettier  than 
any  girl  I  Ve  seen  over  here  yet." 

"That's  precisely  on  what  I  perhaps  most  build." 
And  she  mused  a  moment  in  her  friend's  way.  "I 
should  positively  like  to  take  her  in  hand!" 

He  humoured  the  fancy,  though  indeed  finally  to 
deprecate  it.  "Oh  but  don't,  in  your  zeal,  go  over 
to  her!  I  need  you  most  and  can't,  you  know,  be 
left." 

But  she  kept  it  up.  "  I  wish  they  'd  send  her  out  to 
me!" 

"If  they  knew  you,"  he  returned,  "they  would." 

"Ah  but  don't  they  ?  —  after  all  that,  as  I  've  under 
stood  you,  you  've  told  them  about  me  ? " 

He  had  paused  before  her  again,  but  he  continued 
his  course.  "They  will  —  before,  a*s  you  say,  I've 
done."  Then  he  came  out  with  the  point  he  had 
wished  after  all  most  to  make.  "  It  seems  to  give  away 
now  his  game.  This  is  what  he  has  been  doing 

—  keeping  me  along  for.    He  has  been  waiting  for 
them." 

Miss  Gostrey  drew  in  her  lips.  "You  see  a  good 
deal  in  it!" 

"  I  doubt  if  I  see  as  much  as  you.  Do  you  pretend," 
he  went  on,  "  that  you  don't  see  —  ? " 

"Well,  what?"  —  she  pressed  him  as  he  paused. 

"Why  that  there  must  be  a  lot  between  them  — 
and  that  it  has  been  going  on  from  the  first;  even  from 
before  I  came." 

She  took  a  minute  to  answer.  "Who  are  they  then 

—  if  it 's  so  grave  ? " 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"  It  may  n't  be  grave  —  it  may  be  gay.  But  at  any 
rate  it's  marked.  Only  I  don't  know,"  Strether  had 
to  confess,  "anything  about  them.  Their  name  for 
instance  was  a  thing  that,  after  little  Bilham's  infor 
mation,  I  found  it  a  kind  of  refreshment  not  to  feel 
obliged  to  follow  up." 

"Oh,"  she  returned,  "if  you  think  you've  got 
off  — !" 

Her  laugh  produced  in  him  a  momentary  gloom. 
"  I  don't  think  I  've  got  off.  I  only  think  I  'm  breathing 
for  about  five  minutes.  I  dare  say  I  shall  have,  at  the 
best,  still  to  get  on."  A  look,  over  it  all,  passed  be 
tween  them,  and  the  next  minute  he  had  come  back 
to  good  humour.  "  I  don't  meanwhile  take  the  small 
est  interest  in  their  name." 

"Nor  in  their  nationality?  —  American,  French, 
English,  Polish?" 

"I  don't  care  the  least  little  'hang,'"  he  smiled, 
"for  their  nationality.  It  would  be  nice  if  they're 
Polish!"  he  almost  immediately  added. 

"Very  nice  indeed."  The  transition  kept  up  her 
spirits.  "So  you  see  you  do  care." 

He  did  this  contention  a  modified  justice.  "I  think 
I  should  if  they  were  Polish.  Yes,"  he  thought  — 
"there  might  be  joy  in  that" 

"  Let  us  then  hope  for  it."  But  she  came  after  this 
nearer  to  the  question.  "  If  the  girl 's  of  the  right  age 
of  course  the  mother  can't  be.  I  mean  for  the  virtuous 
attachment.  If  the  girl's  twenty  —  and  she  can't  be 
less  —  the  mother  must  be  at  least  forty.  So  it  puts 
the  mother  out.  She's  too  old  for  him." 

Strether,  arrested  again,  considered  and  demurred. 
186 


BOOK  FOURTH 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  Do  you  think  any  one  would  be 
too  old  for  him  ?  I  'm  eighty,  and  I  'm  too  young. 
But  perhaps  the  girl,"  he  continued,  "isn't  twenty. 
Perhaps  she 's  only  ten  —  but  such  a  little  dear  that 
Chad  finds  himself  counting  her  in  as  an  attraction  of 
the  acquaintance.  Perhaps  she's  only  five.  Perhaps 
the  mother 's  but  five-and-twenty  —  a  charming 
young  widow." 

Miss  Gostrey  entertained  the  suggestion.  "  She  is  a 
widow  then  ? " 

"  I  have  n't  the  least  idea ! "  They  once  more,  in 
spite  of  this  vagueness,  exchanged  a  look  —  a  look 
that  was  perhaps  the  longest  yet.  It  seemed  in  fact,  the 
next  thing,  to  require  to  explain  itself;  which  it  did  as 
it  could.  "I  only  feel  what  I've  told  you  —  that  he 
has  some  reason." 

Miss  Gostrey's  imagination  had  taken  its  own  flight. 
"Perhaps  she's  not  a  widow." 

Strether  seemed  to  accept  the  possibility  with 
reserve.  Still  he  accepted  it.  "Then  that's  why  the 
attachment  —  if  it 's  to  her  —  is  virtuous." 

But  she  looked  as  if  she  scarce  followed.  "Why  is  it 
virtuous  if — since  she's  free  —  there's  nothing  to 
impose  on  it  any  condition  ? " 

He  laughed  at  her  question.  "Oh  I  perhaps  don't 
mean  as  virtuous  as  that !  Your  idea  is  that  it  can  be 
virtuous  —  in  any  sense  worthy  of  the  name  —  only 
if  she 's  not  free  ?  But  what  does  it  become  then,"  he 
asked,  "for  her?99 

"Ah  that's  another  matter."  He  said  nothing  for  a 
moment,  and  she  soon  went  on.  "  I  dare  say  you  're 
right,  at  any  rate,  about  Mr.  Newsome's  little  plan. 

187 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

He  has  been  trying  you  —  has  been  reporting  on  you 
to  these  friends." 

Strether  meanwhile  had  had  time  to  think  more. 
"Then  where 's  his  straightness  ? " 

"Well,  as  we  say,  it's  struggling  up,  breaking  out, 
asserting  itself  as  it  can.  We  can  be  on  the  side,  you 
see,  of  his  straightness.  We  can  help  him.  But  he  has 
made  out,"  said  Miss  Gostrey,  "that  you'll  do." 

"Do  for  what?" 

"Why,  for  them  —  for  ces  dames.  He  has  watched 
you,  studied  you,  liked  you  —  and  recognised  that 
they  must.  It's  a  great  compliment  to  you,  my  dear 
man;  for  I'm  sure  they're  particular.  You  came 
out  for  a  success,  Well,"  she  gaily  declared,  "  you  're 
having  it ! " 

He  took  it  from  her  with  momentary  patience  and 
then  turned  abruptly  away.  It  was  always  convenient 
to  him  that  there  were  so  many  fine  things  in  her 
room  to  look  at.  But  the  examination  of  two  or  three 
of  them  appeared  soon  to  have  determined  a  speech 
that  had  little  to  do  with  them.  "You  don't  believe 
in  it!" 

"In  what?" 

"In  the  character  of  the  attachment.  In  its  in 
nocence." 

But  she  defended  herself.  "I  don't  pretend  to  know 
anything  about  it.  Everything's  possible.  We  must 
see." 

"  See  ? "  he  echoed  with  a  groan.  "  Have  n't  we  seen 
enough  ? " 

"7  have  n't,"  she  smiled. 

"  But  do  you  suppose  then  little  Bilham  has  lied  ? " 
188 


BOOK  FOURTH 

"You  must  find  out." 

It  made  him  almost  turn  pale.  "Find  out  any 
more  ?  " 

He  had  dropped  on  a  sofa  for  dismay;  but  she 
seemed,  as  she  stood  over  him,  to  have  the  last  word. 
"  Was  n't  what  you  came  out  for  to  find  out  all  ? " 


BOOK  FIFTH 


I 


THE  Sunday  of  the  next  week  was  a  wonderful  day, 
and  Chad  Newsome  had  let  his  friend  know  in  ad 
vance  that  he  had  provided  for  it.  There  had  already 
been  a  question  of  his  taking  him  to  see  the  great 
Gloriani,  who  was  at  home  on  Sunday  afternoons  and 
at  whose  house,  for  the  most  part,  fewer  bores  were  to 
be  met  than  elsewhere;  but  the  project,  through  some 
accident,  had  not  had  instant  effect,  and  now  revived 
in  happier  conditions.  Chad  had  made  the  point  that 
the  celebrated  sculptor  had  a  queer  old  garden,  for 
which  the  weather  —  spring  at  last  frank  and  fair  — 
was  propitious ;  and  two  or  three  of  his  other  allusions 
had  confirmed  for  Strether  the  expectation  of  some 
thing  special.  He  had  by  this  time,  for  all  introductions 
and  adventures,  let  himself  recklessly  go,  cherishing 
the  sense  that  whatever  the  young  man  showed  him  he 
was  showing  at  least  himself.  He  could  have  wished 
indeed,  so  far  as  this  went,  that  Chad  were  less  of  a 
mere  cicerone ;  for  he  was  not  without  the  impression 
—  now  that  the  vision  of  his  game,  his  plan,  his  deep 
diplomacy,  did  recurrently  assert  itself  —  of  his  taking 
refuge  from  the  realities  of  their  intercourse  in  pro 
fusely  dispensing,  as  our  friend  mentally  phrased  it, 
panem  et  circenses.  Our  friend  continued  to  feel  rather 
smothered  in  flowers,  though  he  made  in  his  other 
moments  the  almost  angry  inference  that  this  was 
only  because  of  his  odious  ascetic  suspicion  of  any 

193 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

form  of  beauty.  He  periodically  assured  himself  — 
for  his  reactions  were  sharp  —  that  he  should  n't 
reach  the  truth  of  anything  till  he  had  at  least  got 
rid  of  that. 

He  had  known  beforehand  that  Madame  de  Vion- 
net  and  her  daughter  would  probably  be  on  view,  an 
intimation  to  that  effect  having  constituted  the  only 
reference  again  made  by  Chad  to  his  good  friends  from 
the  south.  The  effect  of  Strether's  talk  about  them 
with  Miss  Gostrey  had  been  quite  to  consecrate  his 
reluctance  to  pry;  something  in  the  very  air  of  Chad's 
silence  —  judged  in  the  light  of  that  talk  —  offered  it 
to  him  as  a  reserve  he  could  markedly  match.  It 
shrouded  them  about  with  he  scarce  knew  what,  a 
consideration,  a  distinction ;  he  was  in  presence  at  any 
rate  —  so  far  as  it  placed  him  there  —  of  ladies ;  and 
the  one  thing  that  was  definite  for  him  was  that  they 
themselves  should  be,  to  the  extent  of  his  responsibil 
ity,  in  presence  of  a  gentleman.  Was  it  because  they 
were  very  beautiful,  very  clever,  or  even  very  good  — 
was  it  for  one  of  these  reasons  that  Chad  was,  so  to 
speak,  nursing  his  effect  ?  Did  he  wish  to  spring  them, 
in  the  Woollett  phrase,  with  a  fuller  force  —  to  con 
found  his  critic,  slight  though  as  yet  the  criticism,  with 
some  form  of  merit  exquisitely  incalculable  ?  The 
most  the  critic  had  at  all  events  asked  was  whether 
the  persons  in  question  were  French ;  and  that  enquiry 
had  been  but  a  proper  comment  on  the  sound  of  their 
name.  "Yes.  That  is  no!"  had  been  Chad's  reply; 
but  he  had  immediately  added  that  their  English  was 
the  most  charming  in  the  world,  so  that  if  Strether 
were  wanting  an  excuse  for  not  getting  on  with  them 

194 


BOOK  FIFTH 

he  would  n't  in  the  least  find  one.  Never  in  fact  had 
Strether  —  in  the  mood  into  which  the  place  had 
quickly  launched  him  —  felt,  for  himself,  less  the  need 
of  an  excuse.  Those  he  might  have  found  would  have 
been,  at  the  worst,  all  for  the  others,  the  people  before 
him,  in  whose  liberty  to  be  as  they  were  he  was  aware 
that  he  positively  rejoiced.  His  fellow  guests  were 
multiplying,  and  these  things,  their  liberty,  their  in 
tensity,  their  variety,  their  conditions  at  large,  were 
in  fusion  in  the  admirable  medium  of  the  scene. 

The  place  itself  was  a  great  impression  —  a  small 
pavilion,  clear-faced  and  sequestered,  an  effect  of  pol 
ished  parquet,  of  fine  white  panel  and  spare  sallow  gilt, 
of  decoration  delicate  and  rare,  in  the  heart  of  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain  and  on  the  edge  of  a  cluster 
of  gardens  attached  to  old  noble  houses.  Far  back 
from  streets  and  unsuspected  by  crowds,  reached  by  a 
long  passage  ar.d  a  quiet  court,  it  was  as  striking  to  the 
unprepared  mind,  he  immediately  saw,  as  a  treasure 
dug  up ;  giving  him  too,  more  than  anything  yet,  the 
note  of  the  range  of  the  immeasurable  town  and 
sweeping  away,  as  by  a  last  brave  brush,  his  usual 
landmarks  and  terms.  It  was  in  the  garden,  a  spa 
cious  cherished  remnant,  out  of  which  a  dozen  per 
sons  had  already  passed,  that  Chad's  host  presently 
met  them ;  while  the  tall  bird-haunted  trees,  all  of  a 
twitter  with  the  spring  and  the  weather,  and  the  high 
party-walls,  on  the  other  side  of  which  grave  hotels 
stood  off  for  privacy,  spoke  of  survival,  transmission, 
association,  a  strong  indifferent  persistent  order.  The 
day  was  so  soft  that  the  little  party  had  practically 
adjourned  to  the  open  air,  but  the  open  air  was  in 

195 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

such  conditions  all  a  chamber  of  state.  Strether  had 
presently  the  sense  of  a  great  convent,  a  convent  of 
missions,  famous  for  he  scarce  knew  what,  a  nurs 
ery  of  young  priests,  of  scattered  shade,  of  straight 
alleys  and  chapel-bells,  that  spread  its  mass  in  one 
quarter;  he  had  the  sense  of  names  in  the  air,  of 
ghosts  at  the  windows,  of  signs  and  tokens,  a  whole 
range  of  expression,  all  about  him,  too  thick  for 
prompt  discrimination. 

This  assault  of  images  became  for  a  moment,  in  the 
address  of  the  distinguished  sculptor,  almost  formid 
able  :  Gloriani  showed  him,  in  such  perfect  confidence, 
on  Chad's  introduction  of  him,  a  fine  worn  handsome 
face,  a  face  that  was  like  an  open  letter  in  a  foreign 
tongue.  With  his  genius  in  his  eyes,  his  manners  on 
his  lips,  his  long  career  behind  him  and  his  honours 
and  rewards  all  round,  the  great  artist,  in  the  course  of 
a  single  sustained  look  and  a  few  words  of  delight  at 
receiving  him,  affected  our  friend  as  a  dazzling  pro 
digy  of  type.  Strether  had  seen  in  museums  —  in  the 
Luxembourg  as  well  as,  more  reverently,  later  on, 
in  the  New  York  of  the  billionaires  —  the  work  of 
his  hand ;  knowing  too  that  after  an  earlier  time  in  his 
native  Rome  he  had  migrated,  in  mid-career,  to  Paris, 
where,  with  a  personal  lustre  almost  violent,  he  shone 
in  a  constellation :  all  of  which  was  more  than  enough 
to  crown  him,  for  his  guest,  with  the  light,  with  the 
romance,  of  glory.  Strether,  in  contact  with  that  ele 
ment  as  he  had  never  yet  so  intimately  been,  had  the 
consciousness  of  opening  to  it,  for  the  happy  instant, 
all  the  windows  of  his  mind,  of  letting  this  rather  grey 
interior  drink  in  for  once  the  sun  of  a  clime  not  marked 

196 


BOOK  FIFTH 

in  his  old  geography.  He  was  to  remember  again 
repeatedly  the  medal-like  Italian  face,  in  which  every 
line  was  an  artist's  own,  in  which  time  told  only  as 
tone  and  consecration ;  and  he  was  to  recall  in  especial, 
as  the  penetrating  radiance,  as  the  communication  of 
the  illustrious  spirit  itself,  the  manner  in  which,  while 
they  stood  briefly,  in  welcome  and  response,  face  to 
face,  he  was  held  by  the  sculptor's  eyes.  He  was  n't 
soon  to  forget  them,  was  to  think  of  them,  all  uncon 
scious,  unintending,  preoccupied  though  they  were, 
as  the  source  of  the  deepest  intellectual  sounding  to 
which  he  had  ever  been  exposed.  He  was  in  fact  quite 
to  cherish  his  vision  of  it,  to  play  with  it  in  idle  hours ; 
only  speaking  of  it  to  no  one  and  quite  aware  he 
could  n't  have  spoken  without  appearing  to  talk  non 
sense.  Was  what  it  had  told  him  or  what  it  had  asked 
him  the  greater  of  the  mysteries  ?  Was  it  the  most 
special  flare,  unequalled,  supreme,  of  the  aesthetic 
torch,  lighting  that  wondrous  world  for  ever,  or  was  it 
above  all  the  long  straight  shaft  sunk  by  a  personal 
acuteness  that  life  had  seasoned  to  steel  ?  Nothing  on 
earth  could  have  been  stranger  and  no  one  doubtless 
more  surprised  than  the  artist  himself,  but  it  was  for 
all  the  world  to  Strether  just  then  as  if  in  the  matter  of 
his  accepted  duty  he  had  positively  been  on  trial. 
The  deep  human  expertness  in  Gloriani's  charming 
smile  —  oh  the  terrible  life  behind  it !  —  was  flashed 
upon  him  as  a  test  of  his  stuff. 

Chad  meanwhile,  after  having  easily  named  his 
companion,  had  still  more  easily  turned  away  and 
was  already  greeting  other  persons  present.  He  was  as 
easy,  clever  Chad,  with  the  great  artist  as  with  his 

197 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

obscure  compatriot,  and  as  easy  with  every  one  else  as 
with  either:  this  fell  into  its  place  for  Strether  and 
made  almost  a  new  light,  giving  him,  as  a  concatena 
tion,  something  more  he  could  enjoy.  He  liked 
Gloriani,  but  should  never  see  him  again ;  of  that  he 
was  sufficiently  sure.  Chad  accordingly,  who  was 
wonderful  with  both  of  them,  was  a  kind  of  link  for 
hopeless  fancy,  an  implication  of  possibilities  —  oh  if 
everything  had  been  different!  Strether  noted  at  all 
events  that  he  was  thus  on  terms  with  illustrious 
spirits,  and  also  that  —  yes,  distinctly  —  he  had  n't  in 
the  least  swaggered  about  it.  Our  friend  had  n't  come 
there  only  for  this  figure  of  Abel  Newsome's  son,  but 
that  presence  threatened  to  affect  the  observant  mind 
as  positively  central.  Gloriani  indeed,  remembering 
something  and  excusing  himself,  pursued  Chad  to 
speak  to  him,  and  Strether  was  left  musing  on  many 
things.  One  of  them  was  the  question  of  whether, 
since  he  had  been  tested,  he  had  passed.  Did  the 
artist  drop  him  from  having  made  out  that  he 
would  n't  do  ?  He  really  felt  just  to-day  that  he  might 
do  better  than  usual.  Had  n't  he  done  well  enough, 
so  far  as  that  went,  in  being  exactly  so  dazzled  ?  and 
in  not  having  too,  as  he  almost  believed,  wholly  hidden 
from  his  host  that  he  felt  the  latter's  plummet  ?  Sud 
denly,  across  the  garden,  he  saw  little  Bilham  ap 
proach,  and  it  was  a  part  of  the  fit  that  was  on  him 
that  as  their  eyes  met  he  guessed  also  his  knowledge. 
If  he  had  said  to  him  on  the  instant  what  was  upper 
most  he  would  have  said  :  "Have  I  passed  ?  —  for  of 
course  I  know  one  has  to  pass  here."  Little  Bilham 
would  have  reassured  him,  have  told  him  that  he  exag- 


BOOK  FIFTH 

gerated,  and  have  adduced  happily  enough  the  argu 
ment  of  little  Bilham's  own  very  presence;  which,  in 
truth,  he  could  see,  was  as  easy  a  one  as  Gloriani's 
own  or  as  Chad's.  He  himself  would  perhaps  then 
after  a  while  cease  to  be  frightened,  would  get  the 
point  of  view  for  some  of  the  faces  —  types  tremend 
ously  alien,  alien  to  Woollett  —  that  he  had  already 
begun  to  take  in.  Who  were  they  all,  the  dispersed 
groups  and  couples,  the  ladies  even  more  unlike  those 
of  Woollett  than  the  gentlemen  ?  —  this  was  the  en 
quiry  that,  when  his  young  friend  had  greeted  him, 
he  did  find  himself  making. 

"  Oh  they  're  every  one  —  all  sorts  and  sizes ;  of 
course  I  mean  within  limits,  though  limits  down  per 
haps  rather  more  than  limits  up.  There  are  always 
artists  —  he 's  beautiful  and  inimitable  to  the  cber 
confrere;  and  then  gros  bonnets  of  many  kinds  — 
ambassadors,  cabinet  ministers,  bankers,  generals, 
what  do  I  know  ?  even  Jews.  Above  all  always  some 
awfully  nice  women  —  and  not  too  many ;  sometimes 
an  actress,  an  artist,  a  great  performer  —  but  only 
when  they're  not  monsters;  and  in  particular  the  right 
femmes  du  monde.  You  can  fancy  his  history  on  that 
side  —  I  believe  it's  fabulous :  they  never  give  him  up. 
Yet  he  keeps  them  down :  no  one  knows  how  he  man 
ages;  it's  too  beautiful  and  bland.  Never  too  many  — 
and  a  mighty  good  thing  too ;  just  a  perfect  choice.  But 
there  are  not  in  any  way  many  bores;  it  has  always 
been  so ;  he  has  some  secret.  It 's  extraordinary.  And 
you  don't  find  it  out.  He 's  the  same  to  every  one.  He 
does  n't  ask  questions." 

"Ah  doesn't  he?"  Strether  laughed. 
199 


Bilham  met  it  with  all  his  candour.  "How  then 
should  /  be  here  ? " 

"Oh  for  what  you  tell  me.  You  're  part  of  the  per 
fect  choice." 

Well,  the  young  man  took  in  the  scene.  "  It  seems 
rather  good  to-day." 

Strether  followed  the  direction  of  his  eyes.  "  Are  they 
all,  this  time,  femmes  du  monde  ?  " 

Little  Bilham  showed  his  competence.  "Pretty 
well." 

This  was  a  category  our  friend  had  a  feeling  for; 
a  light,  romantic  and  mysterious,  on  the  feminine 
element,  in  which  he  enjoyed  for  a  little  watching  it. 
"Are  there  any  Poles?" 

His  companion  considered.  "  I  think  I  make  out  a 
'  Portuguee.'  But  I  Ve  seen  Turks." 

Strether  wondered,  desiring  justice.  "They  seem — 
all  the  women  —  very  harmonious." 

"Oh  in  closer  quarters  they  come  out ! "  And  then, 
while  Strether  was  aware  of  fearing  closer  quarters, 
though  giving  himself  again  to  the  harmonies,  "Well,'* 
little  Bilham  went  on,  "it  is  at  the  worst  rather 
good,  you  know.  If  you  like  it,  you  feel  it,  this 
way,  that  shows  you're  not  in  the  least  out.  But 
you  always  know  things,"  he  handsomely  added, 
"immediately." 

Strether  liked  it  and  felt  it  only  too  much;  so  "I 
say,  don't  lay  traps  for  me ! "  he  rather  helplessly  mur 
mured. 

"Well,"  his  companion  returned,  "he's  wonder 
fully  kind  to  us" 

"To  us  Americans  you  mean  ?" 

200 


BOOK  FIFTH 

"Oh  no  —  he  doesn't  know  anything  about  that. 
That's  half  the  battle  here  —  that  you  can  never  hear 
politics.  We  don't  talk  them.  I  mean  to  poor  young 
wretches  of  all  sorts.  And  yet  it 's  always  as  charming 
as  this ;  it 's  as  if,  by  something  in  the  air,  our  squalor 
did  n't  show.  It  puts  us  all  back  —  into  the  last  cent 
ury." 

"I'm  afraid,"  Strether  said,  amused,  "that  it  puts 
me  rather  forward :  oh  ever  so  far ! " 

"Into  the  next  ?  But  is  n't  that  only,"  little  Bilham 
asked,  "because  you're  really  of  the  century 
before?" 

"The  century  before  the  last?  Thank  you!" 
Strether  laughed.  "If  I  ask  you  about  some  of  the 
ladies  it  can't  be  then  that  I  may  hope,  as  such  a  speci 
men  of  the  rococo,  to  please  them." 

"On  the  contrary  they  adore  —  we  all  adore  here  — 
the  rococo,  and  where  is  there  a  better  setting  for 
it  than  the  whole  thing,  the  pavilion  and  the  garden, 
together  ?  There  are  lots  of  people  with  collections," 
little  Bilham  smiled  as  he  glanced  round.  "You'll 
be  secured!" 

It  made  Strether  for  a  moment  give  himself  again 
to  contemplation.  There  were  faces  he  scarce  knew 
what  to  make  of.  Were  they  charming  or  were  they 
only  strange  ?  He  might  n't  talk  politics,  yet  he  sus 
pected  a  Pole  or  two.  The  upshot  was  the  question  at 
the  back  of  his  head  from  the  moment  his  friend  had 
joined  him.  "Have  Madame  de  Vionnet  and  her 
daughter  arrived  ? " 

"I  haven't  seen  them  yet,  but  Miss  Gostrey  has 
come.  She's  in  the  pavilion  looking  at  objects.  One 

201 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

can  see  she 's  a  collector,"  little  Bilham  added  without 
offence. 

"  Oh  yes,  she 's  a  collector,  and  I  knew  she  was  to 
come.  Is  Madame  de  Vionnet  a  collector  ? "  Strether 
went  on. 

"Rather,  I  believe;  almost  celebrated."  The  young 
man  met,  on  it,  a  little,  his  friend's  eyes.  "I  happen  to 
know  —  from  Chad,  whom  I  saw  last  night  —  that 
they've  come  back;  but  only  yesterday.  He  was  n't 
sure  —  up  to  the  last.  This,  accordingly,"  little  Bil 
ham  went  on,  "will  be  —  if  they  are  here  —  their  first 
appearance  after  their  return." 

Strether,  very  quickly,  turned  these  things  over. 
"  Chad  told  you  last  night  ?  To  me,  on  our  way  here, 
he  said  nothing  about  it." 

"  But  did  you  ask  him  ? " 

Strether  did  him  the  justice.   "I  dare  say  not." 

"Well,"  said  little  Bilham,  "you're  not  a  person  to 
whom  it 's  easy  to  tell  things  you  don't  want  to  know. 
Though  it  is  easy,  I  admit  —  it 's  quite  beautiful,"  he 
benevolently  added,  "when  you  do  want  to." 

Strether  looked  at  him  with  an  indulgence  that 
matched  his  intelligence.  "  Is  that  the  deep  reasoning 
on  which  —  about  these  ladies  —  you  've  been  your 
self  so  silent  ? " 

Little  Bilham  considered  the  depth  of  his  reasoning. 
"  I  have  n't  been  silent.  I  spoke  of  them  to  you  the 
other  day,  the  day  we  sat  together  after  Chad's  tea- 
party." 

Strether  came  round  to  it.  "They  then  are  the 
virtuous  attachment  ? " 

"I  can  only  tell  you  that  it's  what  they  pass  for. 

202 


BOOK  FIFTH 

But  is  n't  that  enough  ?  What  more  than  a  vain  ap 
pearance  does  the  wisest  of  us  know  ?  I  commend  you," 
the  young  man  declared  with  a  pleasant  emphasis, 
"the  vain  appearance." 

Strether  looked  more  widely  round,  and  what  he 
saw,  from  face  to  face,  deepened  the  effect  of  his  young 
friend's  words.  "Is  it  so  good  ?" 

"Magnificent." 

Strether  had  a  pause.   "The  husband  's  dead  ?" 

"Dear  no.   Alive." 

"Oh!"  said  Strether.  After  which,  as  his  com 
panion  laughed:  "How  then  can  it  be  so  good?" 

"You'll  see  for  yourself.   One  does  see." 

"Chad's  in  love  with  the  daughter?" 

"That's  what  I  mean." 

Strether  wondered .  "  Then  where 's  the  difficulty  ? " 

"Why,  are  n't  you  and  I  —  with  our  grander  bolder 
ideas?" 

"Oh  mine —  !"  Strether  said  rather  strangely. 
But  then  as  if  to  attenuate :  "  You  mean  they  won't 
hear  of  Woollett  ? " 

Little  Bilham  smiled.  "Isn't  that  just  what  you 
must  see  about  ? " 

It  had  brought  them,  as  she  caught  the  last  words, 
into  relation  with  Miss  Barrace,  whom  Strether  had 
already  observed  —  as  he  had  never  before  seen  a 
lady  at  a  party  —  moving  about  alone.  Coming  within 
sound  of  them  she  had  already  spoken,  and  she  took 
again,  through  her  long-handled  glass,  all  her  amused 
and  amusing  possession.  "How  much,  poor  Mr. 
Strether,  you  seem  to  have  to  see  about!  But  you 
can't  say,"  she  gaily  declared,  "that  I  don't  do  what 

203 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

I  can  to  help  you.  Mr.  Waymarsh  is  placed.  I've 
left  him  in  the  house  with  Miss  Gostrey." 

"The  way,"  little  Bilham  exclaimed,  "Mr.  Strether 
gets  the  ladies  to  work  for  him!  He's  just  preparing 
to  draw  in  another;  to  pounce  —  don't  you  see  him  ? 
—  on  Madame  de  Vionnet." 

"Madame  de  Vionnet?  Oh,  oh,  oh!"  Miss  Bar- 
race  cried  in  a  wonderful  crescendo.  There  was  more 
in  it,  our  friend  made  out,  than  met  the  ear.  Was  it 
after  all  a  joke  that  he  should  be  serious  about  any 
thing  ?  He  envied  Miss  Barrace  at  any  rate  her  power 
of  not  being.  She  seemed,  with  little  cries  and  protests 
and  quick  recognitions,  movements  like  the  darts  of 
some  fine  high-feathered  free-pecking  bird,  to  stand 
before  life  as  before  some  full  shop-window.  You 
could  fairly  hear,  as  she  selected  and  pointed,  the  tap 
of  her  tortoise-shell  against  the  glass.  "It's  certain 
that  we  do  need  seeing  about;  only  I'm  glad  it's  not 
I  who  have  to  do  it.  One  does,  no  doubt,  begin  that 
way;  then  suddenly  one  finds  that  one  has  given  it  up. 
It's  too  much,  it's  too  difficult.  You're  wonderful, 
you  people,"  she  continued  to  Strether,  "  for  not  feel 
ing  those  things  —  by  which  I  mean  impossibilities. 
You  never  feel  them.  You  face  them  with  a  fortitude 
that  makes  it  a  lesson  to  watch  you." 

"  Ah  but "  —  little  Bilham  put  it  with  discourage 
ment  —  "what  do  we  achieve  after  all  ?  We  see  about 
you  and  report  —  when  we  even  go  so  far  as  reporting. 
But  nothing's  done." 

"  Oh  you,  Mr.  Bilham,"  she  replied  as  with  an  im 
patient  rap  on  the  glass,  "you're  not  worth  sixpence! 
You  come  over  to  convert  the  savages  —  for  I  know 

204 


BOOK  FIFTH 

you  verily  did,  I  remember  you  —  and  the  savages 
simply  convert  you" 

"Not  even!"  the  young  man  woefully  confessed: 
"they  haven't  gone  through  that  form.  They've 
simply  —  the  cannibals !  —  eaten  me ;  converted  me 
if  you  like,  but  converted  me  into  food.  I  'm  but  the 
bleached  bones  of  a  Christian." 

"Well  then  there  we  are!  Only"  —  and  Miss  Bar- 
race  appealed  again  to  Strether  —  "  don't  let  it  dis 
courage  you.  You'll  break  down  soon  enough,  but 
you  '11  meanwhile  have  had  your  moments.  //  faut  en 
avoir.  I  always  like  to  see  you  while  you  last.  And 
I  '11  tell  you  who  will  last." 

"Waymarsh  ?"  —  he  had  already  taken  her  up. 

She  laughed  out  as  at  the  alarm  of  it.  "He'll  resist 
even  Miss  Gostrey :  so  grand  is  it  not  to  understand. 
He's  wonderful." 

"He  is  indeed,"  Strether  conceded.  "He  would  n't 
tell  me  of  this  affair  —  only  said  he  had  an  engage 
ment  ;  but  with  such  a  gloom,  you  must  let  me  insist,  as 
if  it  had  been  an  engagement  to  be  hanged.  Then 
silently  and  secretly  he  turns  up  here  with  you.  Do 
you  call  that  'lasting'  ?" 

"Oh  I  hope  it's  lasting!"  Miss  Barrace  said.  "But 
he  only,  at  the  best,  bears  with  me.  He  does  n't  under 
stand  —  not  one  little  scrap.  He 's  delightful.  He 's 
wonderful,"  she  repeated. 

"  Michelangelesque ! "  —  little  Bilham  completed 
her  meaning.  "  He  is  a  success.  Moses,  on  the  ceiling, 
brought  down  to  the  floor;  overwhelming,  colossal, 
but  somehow  portable." 

"  Certainly,  if  you  mean  by  portable,"  she  returned, 
205 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"looking  so  well  in  one's  carriage.  He's  too  funny 
beside  me  in  his  corner;  he  looks  like  somebody, 
somebody  foreign  and  famous,  en  exil;  so  that 
people  wonder  —  it 's  very  amusing  —  whom  I  'm 
taking  about.  I  show  him  Paris,  show  him  every 
thing,  and  he  never  turns  a  hair.  He's  like  the  In 
dian  chief  one  reads  about,  who,  when  he  comes 
up  to  Washington  to  see  the  Great  Father,  stands 
wrapt  in  his  blanket  and  gives  no  sign.  /  might 
be  the  Great  Father  —  from  the  way  he  takes  every 
thing."  She  was  delighted  at  this  hit  of  her  identity 
with  that  personage  —  it  fitted  so  her  character ;  she 
declared  it  was  the  title  she  meant  henceforth  to 
adopt.  "And  the  way  he  sits,  too,  in  the  corner  of 
my  room,  only  looking  at  my  visitors  very  hard  and 
as  if  he  wanted  to  start  something!  They  wonder 
what  he  does  want  to  start.  But  he's  wonderful," 
Miss  Barrace  once  more  insisted.  "He  has  never 
started  anything  yet." 

It  presented  him  none  the  less,  in  truth,  to  her  actual 
friends,  who  looked  at  each  other  in  intelligence,  with 
frank  amusement  on  Bilham's  part  and  a  shade  of 
sadness  on  Strether's.  Strether's  sadness  sprang  — 
for  the  image  had  its  grandeur  —  from  his  thinking 
how  little  he  himself  was  wrapt  in  his  blanket,  how 
little,  in  marble  halls,  all  too  oblivious  of  the  Great 
Father,  he  resembled  a  really  majestic  aboriginal. 
But  he  had  also  another  reflexion.  "You've  all  of 
you  here  so  much  visual  sense  that  you  've  somehow 
all  'run '  to  it.  There  are  moments  when  it  strikes  one 
that  you  have  n't  any  other." 

"Any  moral,"  little  Bilham  explained,  watching 
206 


BOOK  FIFTH 

serenely,  across  the  garden,  the  several  femmes  du 
monde.  "  But  Miss  Barrace  has  a  moral  distinction," 
he  kindly  continued;  speaking  as  if  for  Strether's 
benefit  not  less  than  for  her  own. 

"Have  you?"  Strether,  scarce  knowing  what  he 
was  about,  asked  of  her  almost  eagerly. 

"Oh  not  a  distinction"  —  she  was  mightily  amused 
at  his  tone  —  "Mr.  Bilham's  too  good.  But  I  think 
I  may  say  a  sufficiency.  Yes,  a  sufficiency.  Have  you 
supposed  strange  things  of  me  ? "  —  and  she  fixed 
him  again,  through  all  her  tortoise-shell,  with  the  droll 
interest  of  it.  "You  are  all  indeed  wonderful.  I  should 
awfully  disappoint  you.  I  do  take  my  stand  on  my 
sufficiency.  But  I  know,  I  confess,"  she  went  on, 
"strange  people.  I  don't  know  how  it  happens;  I 
don't  do  it  on  purpose;  it  seems  to  be  my  doom  —  as 
if  I  were  always  one  of  their  habits:  it's  wonderful! 
I  dare  say  moreover,"  she  pursued  with  an  interested 
gravity,  "  that  I  do,  that  we  all  do  here,  run  too  much 
to  mere  eye.  But  how  can  it  be  helped  ?  We  're  all 
looking  at  each  other  —  and  in  the  light  of  Paris  one 
sees  what  things  resemble.  That's  what  the  light  of 
Paris  seems  always  to  show.  It 's  the  fault  of  the  light 
of  Paris  —  dear  old  light ! " 

"Dear  old  Paris!"  little  Bilham  echoed. 

"  Everything,  every  one  shows,"  Miss  Barrace  went 


on. 
tt 


But  for  what  they  really  are  ?"  Strether  asked. 
"Oh  I  like  your  Boston  'reallys'!   But  sometimes 
—  yes." 

"  Dear  old  Paris  then ! "  Strether  resignedly  sighed 
while  for  a  moment  they  looked  at  each  other.  Then 

207 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

he  broke  out:  "Does  Madame  de  Vionnet  do  that? 
I  mean  really  show  for  what  she  is  ? " 

Her  answer  was  prompt.  "She's  charming.  She's 
perfect." 

"Then  why  did  you  a  minute  ago  say  ' Oh,  oh,  oh ! ' 
at  her  name  ? " 

She  easily  remembered.  "Why  just  because — ! 
She's  wonderful." 

"Ah  she  too?"  — Strether  had  almost  a  groan. 

But  Miss  Barrace  had  meanwhile  perceived  relief. 
"Why  not  put  your  question  straight  to  the  person 
who  can  answer  it  best  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  little  Bilham  ;  "  don't  put  any  question  ; 
wait,  rather  —  it  will  be  much  more  fun  —  to  judge 
for  yourself.  He  has  come  to  take  you  to  her." 


II 


ON  which  Strether  saw  that  Chad  was  again  at  hand, 
and  he  afterwards  scarce  knew,  absurd  as  it  may 
seem,  what  had  then  quickly  occurred.  The  moment 
concerned  him,  he  felt,  more  deeply  than  he  could 
have  explained,  and  he  had  a  subsequent  passage  of 
speculation  as  to  whether,  on  walking  off  with  Chad, 
he  had  n't  looked  either  pale  or  red.  The  only  thing 
he  was  clear  about  was  that,  luckily,  nothing  indiscreet 
had  in  fact  been  said,  and  that  Chad  himself  was  more 
than  ever,  in  Miss  Barrace's  great  sense,  wonderful. 
It  was  one  of  the  connexions  —  though  really  why  it 
should  be,  after  all,  was  none  so  apparent  —  in  which 
the  whole  change  in  him  came  out  as  most  striking. 
Strether  recalled  as  they  approached  the  house  that 
he  had  impressed  him  that  first  night  as  knowing  how 
to  enter  a  box.  Well,  he  impressed  him  scarce  less 
now  as  knowing  how  to  make  a  presentation.  It  did 
something  for  Strether's  own  quality  —  marked  it  as 
estimated;  so  that  our  poor  friend,  conscious  and 
passive,  really  seemed  to  feel  himself  quite  handed 
over  and  delivered ;  absolutely,  as  he  would  have  said, 
made  a  present  of,  given  away.  As  they  reached  the 
house  a  young  woman,  about  to  come  forth,  appeared, 
unaccompanied,  on  the  steps;  at  the  exchange  with 
whom  of  a  word  on  Chad's  part  Strether  immediately 
perceived  that,  obligingly,  kindly,  she  was  there  to 
meet  them.  Chad  had  left  her  in  the  house,  but  she 

209 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

had  afterwards  come  halfway  and  then  the  next 
moment  had  joined  them  in  the  garden.  Her  air  of 
youth,  for  Strether,  was  at  first  almost  disconcerting, 
while  his  second  impression  was,  not  less  sharply,  a 
degree  of  relief  at  there  not  having  just  been,  with  the 
others,  any  freedom  used  about  her.  It  was  upon  him 
at  a  touch  that  she  was  no  subject  for  that,  and  mean 
while,  on  Chad's  introducing  him,  she  had  spoken  to 
him,  very  simply  and  gently,  in  an  English  clearly  of 
the  easiest  to  her,  yet  unlike  any  other  he  had  ever 
heard.  It  was  n't  as  if  she  tried ;  nothing,  he  could 
see  after  they  had  been  a  few  minutes  together,  was  as 
if  she  tried ;  but  her  speech,  charming  correct  and  odd, 
was  like  a  precaution  against  her  passing  for  a  Pole. 
There  were  precautions,  he  seemed  indeed  to  see, 
only  when  there  were  really  dangers. 

Later  on  he  was  to  feel  many  more  of  them,  but  by 
that  time  he  was  to  feel  other  things  besides.  She  was 
dressed  in  black,  but  in  black  that  struck  him  as  light 
and  transparent;  she  was  exceedingly  fair,  and,  though 
she  was  as  markedly  slim,  her  face  had  a  round 
ness,  with  eyes  far  apart  and  a  little  strange.  Her 
smile  was  natural  and  dim;  her  hat  not  extravagant; 
he  had  only  perhaps  a  sense  of  the  clink,  beneath  her 
fine  black  sleeves,  of  more  gold  bracelets  and  bangles 
than  he  had  ever  seen  a  lady  wear.  Chad  was  excel 
lently  free  and  light  about  their  encounter;  it  was  one 
of  the  occasions  on  which  Strether  most  wished  he 
himself  might  have  arrived  at  such  ease  and  such 
humour:  "Here  you  are  then,  face  to  face  at  last; 
you  're  made  for  each  other  —  vous  allez  voir;  and  I 
bless  your  union."  It  was  indeed,  after  he  had  gone 

210 


BOOK  FIFTH 

off,  as  if  he  had  been  partly  serious  too.  This  latter 
motion  had  been  determined  by  an  enquiry  from  him 
about  "Jeanne";  to  which  her  mother  had  replied 
that  she  was  probably  still  in  the  house  with  Miss 
Gostrey,  to  whom  she  had  lately  committed  her.  "Ah 
but  you  know,"  the  young  man  had  rejoined,  "  he  must 
see  her";  with  which,  while  Strether  pricked  up  his 
ears,  he  had  started  as  if  to  bring  her,  leaving  the 
other  objects  of  his  interest  together.  Strether  won 
dered  to  find  Miss  Gostrey  already  involved,  feeling 
that  he  missed  a  link;  but  feeling  also,  with  small  de 
lay,  how  much  he  should  like  to  talk  with  her  of 
Madame  de  Vionnet  on  this  basis  of  evidence. 

The  evidence  as  yet  in  truth  was  meagre;  which, 
for  that  matter,  was  perhaps  a  little  why  his  expecta 
tion  had  had  a  drop.  There  was  somehow  not  quite  a 
wealth  in  her;  and  a  wealth  was  all  that,  in  his  sim 
plicity,  he  had  definitely  prefigured.  Still,  it  was  too 
much  to  be  sure  already  that  there  was  but  a  poverty. 
They  moved  away  from  the  house,  and,  with  eyes  on 
a  bench  at  some  distance,  he  proposed  that  they 
should  sit  down.  "  I  Ve  heard  a  great  deal  about  you," 
she  said  as  they  went ;  but  he  had  an  answer  to  it  that 
made  her  stop  short.  "Well,  about  you,  Madame  de 
Vionnet,  I've  heard,  I'm  bound  to  say,  almost  no 
thing  "  —  those  struck  him  as  the  only  words  he  him 
self  could  utter  with  any  lucidity ;  conscious  as  he  was, 
and  as  with  more  reason,  of  the  determination  to  be  in 
respect  to  the  rest  of  his  business  perfectly  plain  and 
go  perfectly  straight.  It  had  n't  at  any  rate  been  in 
the  least  his  idea  to  spy  on  Chad's  proper  freedom. 
It  was  possibly,  however,  at  this  very  instant  and 

211 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

under  the  impression  of  Madame  de  Vionnet's  pause, 
that  going  straight  began  to  announce  itself  as  a  mat 
ter  for  care.  She  had  only  after  all  to  smile  at  him 
ever  so  gently  in  order  to  make  him  ask  himself  if  he 
were  n't  already  going  crooked.  It  might  be  going 
crooked  to  find  it  of  a  sudden  just  only  clear  that  she 
intended  very  definitely  to  be  what  he  would  have 
called  nice  to  him.  This  was  what  passed  between 
them  while,  for  another  instant,  they  stood  still;  he 
could  n't  at  least  remember  afterwards  what  else  it 
might  have  been.  The  thing  indeed  really  unmistake- 
able  was  its  rolling  over  him  as  a  wave  that  he  had 
been,  in  conditions  incalculable  and  unimaginable,  a 
subject  of  discussion.  He  had  been,  on  some  ground 
that  concerned  her,  answered  for;  which  gave  her  an 
advantage  he  should  never  be  able  to  match. 

"  Has  n't  Miss  Gostrey,"  she  asked,  "  said  a  good 
word  for  me  ? " 

What  had  struck  him  first  was  the  way  he  was 
bracketed  with  that  lady;  and  he  wondered  what  ac 
count  Chad  would  have  given  of  their  acquaintance. 
Something  not  as  yet  traceable,  at  all  events,  had  ob 
viously  happened.  "  I  did  n't  even  know  of  her  know 
ing  you.'* 

"Well,  now  she'll  tell  you  all.  I'm  so  glad  you're 
in  relation  with  her." 

This  was  one  of  the  things  —  the  "  all "  Miss  Gos 
trey  would  now  tell  him  —  that,  with  every  deference 
to  present  preoccupation,  was  uppermost  for  Strether 
after  they  had  taken  their  seat.  One  of  the  others  was, 
at  the  end  of  five  minutes,  that  she  —  oh  incontest- 
ably,  yes  —  differed  less;  differed,  that  is,  scarcely  at 

212 


BOOK  FIFTH 

all  —  well,  superficially  speaking,  from  Mrs.  New- 
some  or  even  from  Mrs.  Pocock.  She  was  ever  so 
much  younger  than  the  one  and  not  so  young  as  the 
other;  but  what  was  there  in  her,  if  anything,  that 
would  have  made  it  impossible  he  should  meet  her  at 
Woollett  ?  And  wherein  was  her  talk  during  their 
moments  on  the  bench  together  not  the  same  as  would 
have  been  found  adequate  for  a  Woollett  garden- 
party  ?  —  unless  perhaps  truly  in  not  being  quite  so 
bright.  She  observed  to  him  that  Mr.  Newsome  had, 
to  her  knowledge,  taken  extraordinary  pleasure  in  his 
visit;  but  there  was  no  good  lady  at  Woollett  who 
would  n't  have  been  at  least  up  to  that.  Was  there  in 
Chad,  by  chance,  after  all,  deep  down,  a  principle  of 
aboriginal  loyalty  that  had  made  him,  for  sentimental 
ends,  attach  himself  to  elements,  happily  encountered, 
that  would  remind  him  most  of  the  old  air  and  the  old 
soil  ?  Why  accordingly  be  in  a  flutter  —  Strether 
could  even  put  it  that  way  —  about  this  unfamiliar 
phenomenon  of  the  femme  du  monde?  On  these  terms 
Mrs.  Newsome  herself  was  as  much  of  one.  Little 
Bilham  verily  had  testified  that  they  came  out,  the 
ladies  of  the  type,  in  close  quarters ;  but  it  was  just  in 
these  quarters  —  now  comparatively  close  —  that  he 
felt  Madame  de  Vionnet's  common  humanity.  She 
did  come  out,  and  certainly  to  his  relief,  but  she  came 
out  as  the  usual  thing.  There  might  be  motives  be 
hind,  but  so  could  there  often  be  even  at  Woollett. 
The  only  thing  was  that  if  she  showed  him  she  wished 
to  like  him  —  as  the  motives  behind  might  conceiv 
ably  prompt  —  it  would  possibly  have  been  more 
thrilling  for  him  that  she  should  have  shown  as  more 

213 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

vividly  alien.  Ah  she  was  neither  Turk  nor  Pole !  — 
which  would  be  indeed  flat  once  more  for  Mrs.  New- 
some  and  Mrs.  Pocock.  A  lady  and  two  gentlemen 
had  meanwhile,  however,  approached  their  bench, 
and  this  accident  stayed  for  the  time  further  develop 
ments. 

They  presently  addressed  his  companion,  the  bril 
liant  strangers ;  she  rose  to  speak  to  them,  and  Strether 
noted  how  the  escorted  lady,  though  mature  and  by 
no  means  beautiful,  had  more  of  the  bold  high  look, 
the  range  of  expensive  reference,  that  he  had,  as 
might  have  been  said,  made  his  plans  for.  Madame 
de  Vionnet  greeted  her  as  "Duchesse"  and  was 
greeted  in  turn,  while  talk  started  in  French,  as  "Ma 
toute-belle  " ;  little  facts  that  had  their  due,  their  vivid 
interest  for  Strether.  Madame  de  Vionnet  did  n't, 
none  the  less,  introduce  him  —  a  note  he  was  con 
scious  of  as  false  to  the  Woollett  scale  and  the  Wool- 
lett  humanity;  though  it  did  n't  prevent  the  Duchess, 
who  struck  him  as  confident  and  free,  very  much 
what  he  had  obscurely  supposed  duchesses,  from  look 
ing  at  him  as  straight  and  as  hard  —  for  it  was  hard 
—  as  if  she  would  have  liked,  all  the  same,  to  know 
him.  "Oh  yes,  my  dear,  it's  all  right,  it's  me;  and 
who  are  you,  with  your  interesting  wrinkles  and  your 
most  effective  (is  it  the  handsomest,  is  it  the  ugliest  ?) 
of  noses  ? "  —  some  such  loose  handful  of  bright 
flowers  she  seemed,  fragrantly  enough,  to  fling  at  him. 
Strether  almost  wondered  —  at  such  a  pace  was  he 
going  —  if  some  divination  of  the  influence  of  either 
party  were  what  determined  Madame  de  Vionnet's 
abstention.  One  of  the  gentlemen,  in  any  case,  suc- 

214 


BOOK  FIFTH 

[ 

ceeded  in  placing  himself  in  close  relation  with  our 
friend's  companion;  a  gentleman  rather  stout  and 
importantly  short,  in  a  hat  with  a  wonderful  wide 
curl  to  its  brim  and  a  frock  coat  buttoned  with  an 
effect  of  superlative  decision.  His  French  had  quickly 
turned  to  equal  English,  and  it  occurred  to  Strether 
that  he  might  well  be  one  of  the  ambassadors.  His 
design  was  evidently  to  assert  a  claim  to  Madame  de 
Vionnet's  undivided  countenance,  and  he  made  it 
good  in  the  course  of  a  minute  —  led  her  away  with  a 
trick  of  three  words ;  a  trick  played  with  a  social  art  of 
which  Strether,  looking  after  them  as  the  four,  whose 
backs  were  now  all  turned,  moved  off*,  felt  himself  no 
master. 

He  sank  again  upon  his  bench  and,  while  his  eyes 
followed  the  party,  reflected,  as  he  had  done  before,  on 
Chad's  strange  communities.  He  sat  there  alone  for 
five  minutes,  with  plenty  to  think  of;  above  all  with 
his  sense  of  having  suddenly  been  dropped  by  a 
charming  woman  overlaid  now  by  other  impressions 
and  in  fact  quite  cleared  and  indifferent.  He  had  n't 
yet  had  so  quiet  a  surrender;  he  did  n't  in  the  least 
care  if  nobody  spoke  to  him  more.  He  might  have 
been,  by  his  attitude,  in  for  something  of  a  march  so 
broad  that  the  want  of  ceremony  with  which  he  had 
just  been  used  could  fall  into  its  place  as  but  a  minor 
incident  of  the  procession.  Besides,  there  would  be 
incidents  enough,  as  he  felt  when  this  term  of  contem 
plation  was  closed  by  the  reappearance  of  little  Bil- 
ham,  who  stood  before  him  a  moment  with  a  suggest 
ive  "  Well  ? "  in  which  he  saw  himself  reflected  as 
disorganised,  as  possibly  floored.  He  replied  with  a 

215 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"  Well ! "  intended  to  show  that  he  was  n't  floored  in 
the  least.  No  indeed;  he  gave  it  out,  as  the  young 
man  sat  down  beside  him,  that  if,  at  the  worst,  he  had 
been  overturned  at  all,  he  had  been  overturned  into 
the  upper  air,  the  sublimer  element  with  which  he  had 
an  affinity  and  in  which  he  might  be  trusted  a  while 
to  float.  It  was  n't  a  descent  to  earth  to  say  after  an 
instant  and  in  sustained  response  to  the  reference: 
"You're  quite  sure  her  husband's  living?" 

"Oh  dear,  yes." 

"Ah  then—!" 

"Ah  then  what?" 

Strether  had  after  all  to  think.  "Well,  I'm  sorry 
for  them."  But  it  did  n't  for  the  moment  matter  more 
than  that.  He  assured  his  young  friend  he  was  quite 
content.  They  would  n't  stir;  were  all  right  as  they 
were.  He  did  n't  want  to  be  introduced ;  had  been  in 
troduced  already  about  as  far  as  he  could  go.  He  had 
seen  moreover  an  immensity;  liked  Gloriani,  who,  as 
Miss  Barrace  kept  saying,  was  wonderful;  had  made 
out,  he  was  sure,  the  half-dozen  other  men  who  were 
distinguished,  the  artists,  the  critics  and  oh  the  great 
dramatist — him  it  was  easy  to  spot;  but  wanted  — 
no,  thanks,  really —  to  talk  with  none  of  them ;  having 
nothing  at  all  to  say  and  finding  it  would  do  beauti 
fully  as  it  was;  do  beautifully  because  what  it  was — 
well,  was  just  simply  too  late.  And  when  after  this 
little  Bilham,  submissive  and  responsive,  but  with  an 
eye  to  the  consolation  nearest,  easily  threw  off  some 
"Better  late  than  never!"  all  he  got  in  return  for  it 
was  a  sharp  "  Better  early  than  late ! "  This  note  in 
deed  the  next  thing  overflowed  for  Strether  into  a  quiet 

216 


BOOK  FIFTH 

stream  of  demonstration  that  as  soon  as  he  had  let 
himself  go  he  felt  as  the  real  relief.  It  had  consciously 
gathered  to  a  head,  but  the  reservoir  had  filled  sooner 
than  he  knew,  and  his  companion's  touch  was  to  make 
the  waters  spread.  There  were  some  things  that  had 
to  come  in  time  if  they  were  to  come  at  all.  If  they 
did  n't  come  in  time  they  were  lost  for  ever.  It  was 
the  general  sense  of  them  that  had  overwhelmed  him 
with  its  long  slow  rush. 

"  It's  not  too  late  for  you,  on  any  side,  and  you  don't 
strike  me  as  in  danger  of  missing  the  train;  besides 
which  people  can  be  in  general  pretty  well  trusted,  of 
course — with  the  clock  of  their  freedom  ticking  as 
loud  as  it  seems  to  do  here —  to  keep  an  eye  on  the 
fleeting  hour.  All  the  same  don't  forget  that  you're 
young — blessedly  young;  be  glad  of  it  on  the  con 
trary  and  live  up  to  it.  Live  all  you  can ;  it 's  a  mistake 
not  to.  It  does  n't  so  much  matter  what  you  do  in  par 
ticular,  so  long  as  you  have  your  life.  If  you  have  n't 
had  that  what  have  you  had  ?  This  place  and  these 
impressions — mild  as  you  may  find  them  to  wind  a 
man  up  so ;  all  my  impressions  of  Chad  and  of  people 
I've  seen  at  his  place — well,  have  had  their  abund 
ant  message  for  me,  have  just  dropped  that  into  my 
mind.  I  see  it  now.  I  have  n't  done  so  enough  before 
—  and  now  I'm  old;  too  old  at  any  rate  for  what  I 
see.  Oh  I  do  see,  at  least;  and  more  than  you'd  be 
lieve  or  I  can  express.  It 's  too  late.  And  it 's  as  if  the 
train  had  fairly  waited  at  the  station  for  me  without 
my  having  had  the  gumption  to  know  it  was  there. 
Now  I  hear  its  faint  receding  whistle  miles  and  miles 
down  the  line.  What  one  loses  one  loses;  make  no 

217  ' 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

mistake  about  that.  The  affair —  I  mean  the  affair  of 
life —  could  n't,  no  doubt,  have  been  different  for  me; 
for  it's  at  the  best  a  tin  mould,  either  fluted  and  em 
bossed,  with  ornamental  excrescences,  or  else  smooth 
and  dreadfully  plain,  into  which,  a  helpless  jelly, 
one's  consciousness  is  poured — so  that  one  'takes' 
the  form,  as  the  great  cook  says,  and  is  more  or  less 
compactly  held  by  it:  one  lives  in  fine  as  one  can. 
Still,  one  has  the  illusion  of  freedom ;  therefore  don't 
be,  like  me,  without  the  memory  of  that  illusion.  I 
was  either,  at  the  right  time,  too  stupid  or  too  intelli 
gent  to  have  it;  I  don't  quite  know  which.  Of  course 
at  present  I'm  a  case  of  reaction  against  the  mistake; 
and  the  voice  of  reaction  should,  no  doubt,  always  be 
taken  with  an  allowance.  But  that  does  n't  affect  the 
point  that  the  right  time  is  now  yours.  The  right  time 
is  any  time  that  one  is  still  so  lucky  as  to  have.  You  've 
plenty;  that's  the  great  thing;  you're,  as  I  say,  damn 
you,  so  happily  and  hatefully  young.  Don't  at  any 
rate  miss  things  out  of  stupidity.  Of  course  I  don't 
take  you  for  a  fool,  or  I  should  n't  be  addressing 
you  thus  awfully.  Do  what  you  like  so  long  as  you 
don't  make  my  mistake.  For  it  was  a  mistake. 
Live!"  .  .  .  Slowly  and  sociably,  with  full  pauses 
and  straight  dashes,  Strether  had  so  delivered  him 
self;  holding  little  Bilham  from  step  to  step  deeply 
and  gravely  attentive.  The  end  of  all  was  that  the 
young  man  had  turned  quite  solemn,  and  that  this 
was  a  contradiction  of  the  innocent  gaiety  the 
speaker  had  wished  to  promote.  He  watched  for  a 
moment  the  consequence  of  his  words,  and  then, 
laying  a  hand  on  his  listener's  knee  and  as  if  to  end 

218 


BOOK  FIFTH 

with  the  proper  joke:  "And  now  for  the  eye  I  shall 
keep  on  you ! " 

"Oh  but  I  don't  know  that  I  want  to  be,  at  your 
age,  too  different  from  you!" 

"Ah  prepare  while  you're  about  it,"  said  Strether, 
"to  be  more  amusing." 

Little  Bilham  continued  to  think,  but  at  last  had  a 
smile.  "Well,  you  are  amusing — to  me" 

"  Impayable,  as  you  say,  no  doubt.  But  what  am  I 
to  myself?"  Strether  had  risen  with  this,  giving  his 
attention  now  to  an  encounter  that,  in  the  middle  of 
the  garden,  was  in  the  act  of  taking  place  between 
their  host  and  the  lady  at  whose  side  Madame  de 
Vionnet  had  quitted  him.  This  lady,  who  appeared 
within  a  few  minutes  to  have  left  her  friends,  awaited 
Gloriani's  eager  approach  with  words  on  her  lips 
that  Strether  could  n't  catch,  but  of  which  her  inter 
esting  witty  face  seemed  to  give  him  the  echo.  He  was 
sure  she  was  prompt  and  fine,  but  also  that  she  had 
met  her  match,  and  he  liked  —  in  the  light  of  what  he 
was  quite  sure  was  the  Duchess's  latent  insolence  — 
the  good  humour  with  which  the  great  artist  asserted 
equal  resources.  Were  they,  this  pair,  of  the  "great 
world"  ? —  and  was  he  himself,  for  the  moment  and 
thus  related  to  them  by  his  observation,  in  it  ?  Then 
there  was  something  in  the  great  world  covertly  tiger 
ish,  which  came  to  him  across  the  lawn  and  in  the 
charming  air  as  a  waft  from  the  jungle.  Yet  it  made 
him  admire  most  of  the  two,  made  him  envy,  the 
glossy  male  tiger,  magnificently  marked.  These  ab 
surdities  of  the  stirred  sense,  fruits  of  suggestion  ripen 
ing  on  the  instant,  were  all  reflected  in  his  next  words 

219 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

to  little  Bilham.  "I  know — if  we  talk  of  that  — 
whom  /  should  enjoy  being  like!" 

Little  Bilham  followed  his  eyes ;  but  then  as  with  a 
shade  of  knowing  surprise :  "  Gloriani  ? " 

Our  friend  had  in  fact  already  hesitated,  though 
not  on  the  hint  of  his  companion's  doubt,  in  which 
there  were  depths  of  critical  reserve.  He  had  just 
made  out,  in  the  now  full  picture,  something  and 
somebody  else;  another  impression  had  been  super 
imposed.  A  young  girl  in  a  white  dress  and  a  softly 
plumed  white  hat  had  suddenly  come  into  view,  and 
what  was  presently  clear  was  that  her  course  was  to 
ward  them.  What  was  clearer  still  was  that  the  hand 
some  young  man  at  her  side  was  Chad  Newsome,  and 
what  was  clearest  of  all  was  that  she  was  therefore 
Mademoiselle  de  Vionnet,  that  she  was  unmistakeably 
pretty  —  bright  gentle  shy  happy  wonderful  —  and 
that  Chad  now,  with  a  consummate  calculation  of 
effect,  was  about  to  present  her  to  his  old  friend's 
vision.  What  was  clearest  of  all  indeed  was  something 
much  more  than  this,  something  at  the  single  stroke 
of  which  —  and  was  n't  it  simply  juxtaposition  ?  —  all 
vagueness  vanished.  It  was  the  click  of  a  spring  — 
he  saw  the  truth.  He  had  by  this  time  also  met  Chad's 
look;  there  was  more  of  it  in  that;  and  the  truth,  ac 
cordingly,  so  far  as  Bilham's  enquiry  was  concerned, 
had  thrust  in  the  answer.  "  Oh  Chad ! "  —  it  was  that 
rare  youth  he  should  have  enjoyed  being  "  like."  The 
virtuous  attachment  would  be  all  there  before  him; 
the  virtuous  attachment  would  be  in  the  very  act 
of  appeal  for  his  blessing;  Jeanne  de  Vionnet,  this 
charming  creature,  would  be  —  exquisitely,  intensely 

220 


BOOK  FIFTH 

now  —  the  object  of  it.  Chad  brought  her  straight  up 
to  him,  and  Chad  was,  oh  yes,  at  this  moment  —  for 
the  glory  of  Woollett  or  whatever  —  better  still  even 
than  Gloriani.  He  had  plucked  this  blossom;  he  had 
kept  it  over-night  in  water;  and  at  last  as  he  held  it  up 
to  wonder  he  did  enjoy  his  effect.  That  was  why 
Strether  had  felt  at  first  the  breath  of  calculation  — 
and  why  moreover,  as  he  now  knew,  his  look  at  the 
girl  would  be,  for  the  young  man,  a  sign  of  the  latter' s 
success.  What  young  man  had  ever  paraded  about  that 
way,  without  a  reason,  a  maiden  in  her  flower  ?  And 
there  was  nothing  in  his  reason  at  present  obscure. 
Her  type  sufficiently  told  of  it  —  they  would  n't,  they 
could  n't,  want  her  to  go  to  Woollett.  Poor  Woollett, 
and  what  it  might  miss !  —  though  brave  Chad  indeed 
too,  and  what  it  might  gain!  Brave  Chad  however 
had  just  excellently  spoken.  "This  is  a  good  little 
friend  of  mine  who  knows  all  about  you  and  has  more 
over  a  message  for  you.  And  this,  my  dear  "  —  he  had 
turned  to  the  child  herself — "is  the  best  man  in  the 
world,  who  has  it  in  his  power  to  do  a  great  deal  for  us 
and  whom  I  want  you  to  like  and  revere  as  nearly  as 
possible  as  much  as  I  do." 

She  stood  there  quite  pink,  a  little  frightened,  pret 
tier  and  prettier  and  not  a  bit  like  her  mother.  There 
was  in  this  last  particular  no  resemblance  but  that 
of  youth  to  youth;  and  here  was  in  fact  suddenly 
Strether's  sharpest  impression.  It  went  wondering, 
dazed,  embarrassed,  back  to  the  woman  he  had  just 
been  talking  with ;  it  was  a  revelation  in  the  light  of 
which  he  already  saw  she  would  become  more  inter 
esting.  So  slim  and  fresh  and  fair,  she  had  yet  put 

221 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

forth  this  perfection ;  so  that  for  really  believing  it  of 
her,  for  seeing  her  to  any  such  developed  degree  as  a 
mother,  comparison  would  be  urgent.  Well,  what 
was  it  now  but  fairly  thrust  upon  him  ?  "Mamma 
wishes  me  to  tell  you  before  we  go,"  the  girl  said, 
"that  she  hopes  very  much  you '11  come  to  see  us  very 
soon.  She  has  something  important  to  say  to  you." 

"She  quite  reproaches  herself,"  Chad  helpfully 
explained:  "you  were  interesting  her  so  much  when 
she  accidentally  suffered  you  to  be  interrupted." 

"Ah  don't  mention  it!"  Strether  murmured,  look 
ing  kindly  from  one  to  the  other  and  wondering  at 
many  things. 

"And  I'm  to  ask  you  for  myself,"  Jeanne  con 
tinued  with  her  hands  clasped  together  as  if  in  some 
small  learnt  prayer  —  "  I  'm  to  ask  you  for  myself  if 
you  won't  positively  come." 

"  Leave  it  to  me,  dear  —  I  '11  take  care  of  it ! "  Chad 
genially  declared  in  answer  to  this,  while  Strether 
himself  almost  held  his  breath.  What  was  in  the  girl 
was  indeed  too  soft,  too  unknown  for  direct  dealing; 
so  that  one  could  only  gaze  at  it  as  at  a  picture,  quite 
staying  one's  own  hand.  But  with  Chad  he  was  now 
on  ground  —  Chad  he  could  meet ;  so  pleasant  a  con 
fidence  in  that  and  in  everything  did  the  young  man 
freely  exhale.  There  was  the  whole  of  a  story  in  his 
tone  to  his  companion,  and  he  spoke  indeed  as  if  al 
ready  of  the  family.  It  made  Strether  guess  the  more 
quickly  what  it  might  be  about  which  Madame  de 
Vionnet  was  so  urgent.  Having  seen  him  then  she 
had  found  him  easy;  she  wished  to  have  it  out  with 
him  that  some  way  for  the  young  people  must  be  dis- 

222 


BOOK  FIFTH 

covered,  some  way  that  would  not  impose  as  a  condi 
tion  the  transplantation  of  her  daughter.  He  already 
saw  himself  discussing  with  this  lady  the  attractions  of 
Woollett  as  a  residence  for  Chad's  companion.  Was 
that  youth  going  now  to  trust  her  with  the  affair  —  so 
that  it  would  be  after  all  with  one  of  his  "  lady-friends  " 
that  his  mother's  missionary  should  be  condemned  to 
deal  ?  It  was  quite  as  if  for  an  instant  the  two  men 
looked  at  each  other  on  this  question.  But  there  was 
no  mistaking  at  last  Chad's  pride  in  the  display  of  such 
a  connexion.  This  was  what  had  made  him  so  carry 
himself  while,  three  minutes  before,  he  was  bringing 
it  into  view;  what  had  caused  his  friend,  first  catching 
sight  of  him,  to  be  so  struck  with  his  air.  It  was,  in  a 
word,  just  when  he  thus  finally  felt  Chad  putting 
things  straight  off  on  him  that  he  envied  him,  as  he 
had  mentioned  to  little  Bilham,  most.  The  whole  ex 
hibition  however  was  but  a  matter  of  three  or  four 
minutes,  and  the  author  of  it  had  soon  explained  that, 
as  Madame  de  Vionnet  was  immediately  going  "on," 
this  could  be  for  Jeanne  but  a  snatch.  They  would  all 
meet  again  soon,  and  Strether  was  meanwhile  to  stay 
and  amuse  himself — "I'll  pick  you  up  again  in 
plenty  of  time."  He  took  the  girl  off  as  he  had  brought 
her,  and  Strether,  with  the  faint  sweet  foreignness 
of  her  "Au  revoir,  monsieur!"  in  his  ears  as  a  note 
almost  unprecedented,  watched  them  recede  side  by 
side  and  felt  how,  once  more,  her  companion's  rela 
tion  to  her  got  an  accent  from  it.  They  disappeared 
among  the  others  and  apparently  into  the  house; 
whereupon  our  friend  turned  round  to  give  out  to 
little  Bilham  the  conviction  of  which  he  was  full.  But 

223 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

there  was  no  little  Bilham  any  more;  little  Bilham  had 
within  the  few  moments,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  pro 
ceeded  further :  a  circumstance  by  which,  in  its  order, 
Strether  was  also  sensibly  affected 


Ill 


CHAD  was  not  in  fact  on  this  occasion  to  keep  his 
promise  of  coming  back;  but  Miss  Gostrey  had  soon 
presented  herself  with  an  explanation  of  his  failure. 
There  had  been  reasons  at  the  last  for  his  going  off 
with  ces  dames;  and  he  had  asked  her  with  much 
instance  to  come  out  and  take  charge  of  their  friend. 
She  did  so,  Strether  felt  as  she  took  her  place  beside 
him,  in  a  manner  that  left  nothing  to  desire.  He  had 
dropped  back  on  his  bench,  alone  again  for  a  time, 
and  the  more  conscious  for  little  Bilham's  defection 
of  his  unexpressed  thought ;  in  respect  to  which  how 
ever  this  next  converser  was  a  still  more  capacious 
vessel.  "It's  the  child!"  he  had  exclaimed  to  her 
almost  as  soon  as  she  appeared ;  and  though  her  direct 
response  was  for  some  time  delayed  he  could  feel  in 
her  meanwhile  the  working  of  this  truth.  It  might 
have  been  simply,  as  she  waited,  that  they  were  now 
in  presence  altogether  of  truth  spreading  like  a  flood 
and  not  for  the  moment  to  be  offered  her  in  the  mere 
cupful;  inasmuch  as  who  should  ces  dames  prove  to  be 
but  persons  about  whom  —  once  thus  face  to  face  with 
them  —  she  found  she  might  from  the  first  have  told 
him  almost  everything  ?  This  would  have  freely  come 
had  he  taken  the  simple  precaution  of  giving  her  their 
name.  There  could  be  no  better  example  —  and  she 
appeared  to  note  it  with  high  amusement  —  than  the 
way,  making  things  out  already  so  much  for  himself, 

225 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

he  was  at  last  throwing  precautions  to  the  winds. 
They  were  neither  more  nor  less,  she  and  the  child's 
mother,  than  old  school-friends  —  friends  who  had 
scarcely  met  for  years  but  whom  this  unlooked-for 
chance  had  brought  together  with  a  rush.  It  was  a 
relief,  Miss  Gostrey  hinted,  to  feel  herself  no  longer 
groping;  she  was  unaccustomed  to  grope  and  as  a 
general  thing,  he  might  well  have  seen,  made  straight 
enough  for  her  clue.  With  the  one  she  had  now  picked 
up  in  her  hands  there  need  be  at  least  no  waste  of 
wonder.  "She's  coming  to  see  me  —  that's  for  you" 
Strether's  counsellor  continued;  "but  I  don't  require 
it  to  know  where  I  am." 

The  waste  of  wonder  might  be  proscribed;  but 
Strether,  characteristically,  was  even  by  this  time  in 
the  immensity  of  space.  "  By  which  you  mean  that 
you  know  where  she  is  ? " 

She  just  hesitated.  "I  mean  that  if  she  comes  to  see 
me  I  shall  —  now  that  I  Ve  pulled  myself  round  a  bit 
after  the  shock  —  not  be  at  home." 

Strether  hung  poised.  "  You  call  it  —  your  recogni 
tion  —  a  shock  ? " 

She  gave  one  of  her  rare  flickers  of  impatience.  "  It 
was  a  surprise,  an  emotion.  Don't  be  so  literal.  I 
wash  my  hands  of  her." 

Poor  Strether's  face  lengthened.  "She's  impos 
sible—?" 

"She's  even  more  charmng  than  I  remembered 
her." 

"Then  what's  the  matter?" 

She  had  to  think  how  to  put  it.  "Well,  I'm  impos 
sible.  It's  impossible.  Everything's  impossible." 

226 


BOOK  FIFTH 

He  looked  at  her  an  instant.  "I  see  where  you're 
coming  out.  Everything's  possible."  Their  eyes  had 
on  it  in  fact  an  exchange  of  some  duration;  after 
which  he  pursued :  "  Is  n't  it  that  beautiful  child  ? " 
Then  as  she  still  said  nothing :  "Why  don't  you  mean 
to  receive  her  ? " 

Her  answer  in  an  instant  rang  clear.  "Because  I 
wish  to  keep  out  of  the  business." 

It  provoked  in  him  a  weak  wail.  "You're  going 
to  abandon  me  now?" 

"No,  I'm  only  going  to  abandon  her.  She'll  want 
me  to  help  her  with  you.  And  I  won't." 

"You'll  only  help  me  with  her?  Well  then—!" 
Most  of  the  persons  previously  gathered  had,  in  the 
interest  of  tea,  passed  into  the  house,  and  they  had  the 
gardens  mainly  to  themselves.  The  shadows  were 
long,  the  last  call  of  the  birds,  who  had  made  a  home 
of  their  own  in  the  noble  interspaced  quarter,  sounded 
from  the  high  trees  in  the  other  gardens  as  well,  those 
of  the  old  convent  and  of  the  old  hotels;  it  was  as  if  our 
friends  had  waited  for  the  full  charm  to  come  out. 
Strether's  impressions  were  still  present ;  it  was  as  if 
something  had  happened  that  "nailed"  them,  made 
them  more  intense ;  but  he  was  to  ask  himself  soon 
afterwards,  that  evening,  what  really  had  happened  — 
conscious  as  he  could  after  all  remain  that  for  a  gen 
tleman  taken,  and  taken  the  first  time,  into  the 
"great  world,'*  the  world  of  ambassadors  and  duch 
esses,  the  items  made  a  meagre  total.  It  was  nothing 
new  to  him,  however,  as  we  know,  that  a  man  might 
have  —  at  all  events  such  a  man  as  he  —  an  amount 
of  experience  out  of  any  proportion  to  his  adventures; 

227 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

so  that,  though  it  was  doubtless  no  great  adventure 
to  sit  on  there  with  Miss  Gostrey  and  hear  about 
Madame  de  Vionnet,  the  hour,  the  picture,  the  imme 
diate,  the  recent,  the  possible  —  as  well  as  the  com 
munication  itself,  not  a  note  of  which  failed  to  reverb 
erate  —  only  gave  the  moments  more  of  the  taste  of 
history. 

It  was  history,  to  begin  with,  that  Jeanne's  mother 
had  been  three-and-twenty  years  before,  at  Geneva, 
schoolmate  and  good  girl-friend  to  Maria  Gostrey, 
who  had  moreover  enjoyed  since  then,  though  inter 
ruptedly  and  above  all  with  a  long  recent  drop,  other 
glimpses  of  her.  Twenty-three  years  put  them  both 
on,  no  doubt;  and  Madame  de  Vionnet  —  though  she 
had  married  straight  after  school  —  could  n't  be  to 
day  an  hour  less  than  thirty-eight.  This  made  her  ten 
years  older  than  Chad  —  though  ten  years,  also,  if 
Strether  liked,  older  than  she  looked ;  the  least,  at  any 
rate,  that  a  prospective  mother-in-law  could  be  ex 
pected  to  do  with.  She  would  be  of  all  mothers-in- 
law  the  most  charming;  unless  indeed,  through  some 
perversity  as  yet  insupposeable,  she  should  utterly 
belie  herself  in  that  relation.  There  was  none  surely 
in  which,  as  Maria  remembered  her,  she  must  n't  be 
charming;  and  this  frankly  in  spite  of  the  stigma  of 
failure  in  the  tie  where  failure  always  most  showed. 
It  was  no  test  there  —  when  indeed  was  it  a  test 
there  ?  —  for  Monsieur  de  Vionnet  had  been  a  brute. 
She  had  lived  for  years  apart  from  him  —  which  was 
of  course  always  a  horrid  position ;  but  Miss  Gostrey's 
impression  of  the  matter  had  been  that  she  could 
scarce  have  made  a  better  thing  of  it  had  she  done  it 

228 


BOOK  FIFTH 

on  purpose  to  show  she  was  amiable.  She  was  so 
amiable  that  nobody  had  had  a  word  to  say;  which 
was  luckily  not  the  case  for  her  husband.  He  was  so 
impossible  that  she  had  the  advantage  of  all  her 
merits. 

It  was  still  history  for  Strether  that  the  Comte  de 
Vionnet  —  it  being  also  history  that  the  lady  in  ques 
tion  was  a  Countess  —  should  now,  under  Miss  Gos- 
trey's  sharp  touch,  rise  before  him  as  a  high  distin 
guished  polished  impertinent  reprobate,  the  product 
of  a  mysterious  order;  it  was  history,  further,  that  the 
charming  girl  so  freely  sketched  by  his  companion 
should  have  been  married  out  of  hand  by  a  mother, 
another  figure  of  striking  outline,  full  of  dark  personal 
motive;  it  was  perhaps  history  most  of  all  that  this 
company  was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  governed  by  such 
considerations  as  put  divorce  out  of  the  question. 
"  Ces  gens-la  don't  divorce,  you  know,  any  more  than 
they  emigrate  or  abjure  —  they  think  it  impious  and 
vulgar  " ;  a  fact  in  the  light  of  which  they  seemed  but 
the  more  richly  special.  It  was  all  special;  it  was  all, 
for  Strether's  imagination,  more  or  less  rich.  The  girl 
at  the  Genevese  school,  an  isolated  interesting  attach 
ing  creature,  then  both  sensitive  and  violent,  auda 
cious  but  always  forgiven,  was  the  daughter  of  a 
French  father  and  an  English  mother  who,  early  left 
a  widow,  had  married  again  —  tried  afresh  with  a 
foreigner;  in  her  career  with  whom  she  had  appar 
ently  given  her  child  no  example  of  comfort.  All  these 
people  —  the  people  of  the  English  mother's  side  — 
had  been  of  condition  more  or  less  eminent;  yet  with 
oddities  and  disparities  that  had  often  since  made 

229 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Maria,  thinking  them  over,  wonder  what  they  really 
quite  rhymed  to.  It  was  in  any  case  her  belief  that  the 
mother,  interested  and  prone  to  adventure,  had  been 
without  conscience,  had  only  thought  of  ridding  her 
self  most  quickly  of  a  possible,  an  actual  encumbrance. 
The  father,  by  her  impression,  a  Frenchman  with  a 
name  one  knew,  had  been  a  different  matter,  leaving 
his  child,  she  clearly  recalled,  a  memory  all  fondness, 
as  well  as  an  assured  little  fortune  which  was  unluck 
ily  to  make  her  more  or  less  of  a  prey  later  on.  She  had 
been  in  particular,  at  school,  dazzlingly,  though  quite 
booklessly,  clever ;  as  polgylot  as  a  little  Jewess  (which 
she  was  n't,  oh  no !)  and  chattering  French,  English, 
German,  Italian,  anything  one  would,  in  a  way  that 
made  a  clean  sweep,  if  not  of  prizes  and  parchments, 
at  least  of  every  "part,"  whether  memorised  or  im 
provised,  in  the  curtained  costumed  school  repertory, 
and  in  especial  of  all  mysteries  of  race  and  vagueness 
of  reference,  all  swagger  about  "  home,"  among  their 
variegated  mates. 

It  would  doubtless  be  difficult  to-day,  as  between 
French  and  English,  to  name  her  and  place  her;  she 
would  certainly  show,  on  knowledge,  Miss  Gostrey 
felt,  as  one  of  those  convenient  types  who  don't  keep 
you  explaining  —  minds  with  doors  as  numerous  as 
the  many-tongued  cluster  of  confessionals  at  Saint 
Peter's.  You  might  confess  to  her  with  confidence  in 
Roumelian,  and  even  Roumelian  sins.  Therefore  — ! 
But  Strether's  narrator  covered  her  implication  with 
a  laugh ;  a  laugh  by  which  his  betrayal  of  a  sense  of 
the  lurid  in  the  picture  was  also  perhaps  sufficiently 
protected.  He  had  a  moment  of  wondering,  while  his 

230 


BOOK  FIFTH 

friend  went  on,  what  sins  might  be  especially  Rou- 
melian.  She  went  on  at  all  events  to  the  mention  of 
her  having  met  the  young  thing  —  again  by  some 
Swiss  lake  —  in  her  first  married  state,  which  had  ap 
peared  for  the  few  intermediate  years  not  at  least 
violently  disturbed.  She  had  been  lovely  at  that  mo 
ment,  delightful  to  her,  full  of  responsive  emotion,  of 
amused  recognitions  and  amusing  reminders;  and 
then,  once  more,  much  later,  after  a  long  interval, 
equally  but  differently  charming  —  touching  and 
rather  mystifying  for  the  five  minutes  of  an  encounter 
at  a  railway-station  en  province,  during  which  it  had 
come  out  that  her  life  was  all  changed.  Miss  Gostrey 
had  understood  enough  to  see,  essentially,  what  had 
happened,  and  yet  had  beautifully  dreamed  that  she 
was  herself  faultless.  There  were  doubtless  depths  in 
her,  but  she  was  all  right ;  Strether  would  see  if  she 
was  n't.  She  was  another  person  however  —  that  had 
been  promptly  marked  —  from  the  small  child  of  na 
ture  at  the  Geneva  school;  a  little  person  quite  made 
over  (as  foreign  women  were,  compared  with  Ameri 
can)  by  marriage.  Her  situation  too  had  evidently 
cleared  itself  up ;  there  would  have  been  —  all  that 
was  possible  —  a  judicial  separation.  She  had  settled 
in  Paris,  brought  up  her  daughter,  steered  her  boat. 
It  was  no  very  pleasant  boat  —  especially  there  —  to 
be  in;  but  Marie  de  Vionnet  would  have  headed 
straight.  She  would  have  friends,  certainly  —  and 
very  good  ones.  There  she  was  at  all  events  —  and  it 
was  very  interesting.  Her  knowing  Mr.  Chad  did  n't 
in  the  least  prove  she  had  n't  friends;  what  it  proved 
was  what  good  ones  he  had.  "  I  saw  that,"  said  Miss 

231 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Gostrey,  "that  night  at  the  Francais;  it  came  out  for 
me  in  three  minutes.  I  saw  her  —  or  somebody  like 
her.  And  so,"  she  immediately  added,  "  did  you." 

"  Oh  no  —  not  anybody  like  her ! "  Strether  laughed. 
"But  you  mean,"  he  as  promptly  went  on,  "that  she 
has  had  such  an  influence  on  him  ?" 

Miss  Gostrey  was  on  her  feet;  it  was  time  for 
them  to  go.  "She  has  brought  him  up  for  her  daugh 
ter." 

Their  eyes,  as  so  often,  in  candid  conference, 
through  their  settled  glasses,  met  over  it  long;  after 
which  Strether's  again  took  in  the  whole  place.  They 
were  quite  alone  there  now.  "  Must  n't  she  rather  — 
in  the  time  then  —  have  rushed  it  ? " 

"Ah  she  won't  of  course  have  lost  an  hour.  But 
that's  just  the  good  mother  —  the  good  French  one. 
You  must  remember  that  of  her  —  that  as  a  mother 
she's  French,  and  that  for  them  there's  a  special 
providence.  It  precisely  however  —  that  she  may  n't 
have  been  able  to  begin  as  far  back  as  she'd  have 
liked  —  makes  her  grateful  for  aid." 

Strether  took  this  in  as  they  slowly  moved  to  the 
house  on  their  way  out.  "She  counts  on  me  then  to 
put  the  thing  through  ? " 

"Yes  —  she  counts  on  you.  Oh  and  first  of  all  of 
course,"  Miss  Gostrey  added,  "on  her  —  well,  con 
vincing  you." 

"Ah,"  her  friend  returned,  "she  caught  Chad 
young ! " 

"Yes,  but  there  are  women  who  are  for  all  your 
'times  of  life/  They're  the  most  wonderful  sort." 

She  had  laughed  the  words  out,  but  they  brought 
232 


BOOK  FIFTH 

her  companion,  the  next  thing,  to  a  stand.  "Is  what 
you  mean  that  she'll  try  to  make  a  fool  of  me  ?" 

"Well,  I'm  wondering  what  she  will  —  with  an 
opportunity  —  make." 

"What  do  you  call,"  Strether  asked,  "an  oppor 
tunity  ?  My  going  to  see  her  ? " 

"Ah  you  must  go  to  see  her"  —  Miss  Gostrey  was 
a  trifle  evasive.  "  You  can't  not  do  that.  You  'd  have 
gone  to  see  the  other  woman.  I  mean  if  there  had  been 
one  —  a  different  sort.  It's  what  you  came  out  for." 

It  might  be;  but  Strether  distinguished.  "I  did  n't 
come  out  to  see  this  sort." 

She  had  a  wonderful  look  at  him  now.  "Are  you 
disappointed  she  is  n't  worse  ?" 

He  for  a  moment  entertained  the  question,  then 
found  for  it  the  frankest  of  answers.  "Yes.  If  she 
were  worse  she'd  be  better  for  our  purpose.  It  would 
be  simpler." 

"Perhaps,"  she  admitted.  "But  won't  this  be 
pleasanter  ? " 

"Ah  you  know,"  he  promptly  replied,  "I  didn't 
come  out  —  was  n't  that  just  what  you  originally 
reproached  me  with  ?  —  for  the  pleasant." 

"Precisely.  Therefore  I  say  again  what  I  said  at 
first.  You  must  take  things  as  they  come.  Besides," 
Miss  Gostrey  added,  "I'm  not  afraid  for  myself." 

" For  yourself— ?" 

"Of  your  seeing  her.  I  trust  her.  There's  nothing 
she'll  say  about  me.  In  fact  there's  nothing  she  can." 

Strether  wondered  —  little  as  he  had  thought  of 
this.  Then  he  broke  out.  "  Oh  you  women ! " 

There  was  something  in  it  at  which  she  flushed. 

233 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"Yes  —  there  we  are.  We're  abysses."  At  last  she 
smiled.  "But  I  risk  her!" 

He  gave  himself  a  shake.  "  Well  then  so  do  I ! " 
But  he  added  as  they  passed  into  the  house  that  he 
would  see  Chad  the  first  thing  in  the  morning. 

This  was  the  next  day  the  more  easily  effected  that 
the  young  man,  as  it  happened,  even  before  he  was 
down,  turned  up  at  his  hotel.  Strether  took  his  coffee, 
by  habit,  in  the  public  room;  but  on  his  descending 
for  this  purpose  Chad  instantly  proposed  an  adjourn 
ment  to  what  he  called  greater  privacy.  He  had  him 
self  as  yet  had  nothing  —  they  would  sit  down  some 
where  together ;  and  when  after  a  few  steps  and  a  turn 
into  the  Boulevard  they  had,  for  their  greater  privacy, 
sat  down  among  twenty  others,  our  friend  saw  in  his 
companion's  move  a  fear  of  the  advent  of  Waymarsh. 
It  was  the  first  time  Chad  had  to  that  extent  given  this 
personage  "away";  and  Strether  found  himself  won 
dering  of  what  it  was  symptomatic.  He  made  out  in  a 
moment  that  the  youth  was  in  earnest  as  he  had  n't 
yet  seen  him ;  which  in  its  turn  threw  a  ray  perhaps  a 
trifle  startling  on  what  they  had  each  up  to  that  time 
been  treating  as  earnestness.  It  was  sufficiently  flat 
tering  however  that  the  real  thing  —  if  this  was  at  last 
the  real  thing  —  should  have  been  determined,  as  ap 
peared,  precisely  by  an  accretion  of  Strether's  import 
ance.  For  this  was  what  it  quickly  enough  came  to  — 
that  Chad,  rising  with  the  lark,  had  rushed  down  to 
let  him  know  while  his  morning  consciousness  was 
yet  young  that  he  had  literally  made  the  afternoon 
before  a  tremendous  impression.  Madame  de  Vionnet 
would  n't,  could  n't  rest  till  she  should  have  some 

234 


BOOK  FIFTH 

assurance  from  him  that  he  would  consent  again  to 
see  her.  The  announcement  was  made,  across  their 
marble-topped  table,  while  the  foam  of  the  hot  milk 
was  in  their  cups  and  its  plash  still  in  the  air,  with  the 
smile  of  Chad's  easiest  urbanity;  and  this  expression 
of  his  face  caused  our  friend's  doubts  to  gather  on  the 
spot  into  a  challenge  of  the  lips.  "  See  here  "  —  that 
was  all ;  he  only  for  the  moment  said  again  "  See  here." 
Chad  met  it  with  all  his  air  of  straight  intelligence, 
while  Strether  remembered  again  that  fancy  of  the 
first  impression  of  him,  the  happy  young  Pagan,  hand 
some  and  hard  but  oddly  indulgent,  whose  mysterious 
measure  he  had  under  the  street-lamp  tried  mentally 
to  take.  The  young  Pagan,  while  a  long  look  passed 
between  them,  sufficiently  understood.  Strether  scarce 
needed  at  last  to  say  the  rest  —  "I  want  to  know 
where  I  am."  But  he  said  it,  adding  before  any  an 
swer  something  more.  "Are  you  engaged  to  be  mar 
ried  —  is  that  your  secret  ?  —  to  the  young  lady  ? " 

Chad  shook  his  head  with  the  slow  amenity  that 
was  one  of  his  ways  of  conveying  that  there  was  time 
for  everything.  "  I  have  no  secret  —  though  I  may 
have  secrets !  I  have  n't  at  any  rate  that  one.  We  're 
not  engaged.  No." 

"Then  where 's  the  hitch  ?" 

"  Do  you  mean  why  I  have  n't  already  started  with 
you  ? "  Chad,  beginning  his  coffee  and  buttering  his 
roll,  was  quite  ready  to  explain.  "  Nothing  would  have 
induced  me  —  nothing  will  still  induce  me  —  not  to 
try  to  keep  you  here  as  long  as  you  can  be  made  to 
stay.  It 's  too  visibly  good  for  you."  Strether  had  him 
self  plenty  to  say  about  this,  but  it  was  amusing  also 

235 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

to  measure  the  march  of  Chad's  tone.  He  had  never 
been  more  a  man  of  the  world,  and  it  was  always  in 
his  company  present  to  our  friend  that  one  was  seeing 
how  in  successive  connexions  a  man  of  the  world 
acquitted  himself.  Chad  kept  it  up  beautifully.  "  My 
idea  —  voyons!  —  is  simply  that  you  should  let 
Madame  de  Vionnet  know  you,  simply  that  you 
should  consent  to  know  her.  I  don't  in  the  least  mind 
telling  you  that,  clever  and  charming  as  she  is,  she 's 
ever  so  much  in  my  confidence.  All  I  ask  of  you  is  to 
let  her  talk  to  you.  You  Ve  asked  me  about  what  you 
call  my  hitch,  and  so  far  as  it  goes  she  '11  explain  it  to 
you.  She 's  herself  my  hitch,  hang  it  —  if  you  must 
really  have  it  all  out.  But  in  a  sense,"  he  hastened  in 
the  most  wonderful  manner  to  add,  "that  you  '11  quite 
make  out  for  yourself.  She 's  too  good  a  friend,  con 
found  her.  Too  good,  I  mean,  for  me  to  leave  without 
—  without — "  It  was  his  first  hesitation. 

"Without  what?" 

"Well,  without  my  arranging  somehow  or  other  the 
damnable  terms  of  my  sacrifice." 

"  It  will  be  a  sacrifice  then  ? " 

"It  will  be  the  greatest  loss  I  ever  suffered.  I  owe 
her  so  much." 

It  was  beautiful,  the  way  Chad  said  these  things, 
and  his  plea  was  now  confessedly  —  oh  quite  fla 
grantly  and  publicly  —  interesting.  The  moment 
really  took  on  for  Strether  an  intensity.  Chad  owed 
Madame  de  Vionnet  so  much  ?  What  did  that  do  then 
but  clear  up  the  whole  mystery  ?  He  was  indebted  for 
alterations,  and  she  was  thereby  in  a  position  to  have 
sent  in  her  bill  for  expenses  incurred  in  reconstruction. 

236 


BOOK  FIFTH 

What  was  this  at  bottom  but  what  had  been  to  be 
arrived  at  ?  Strether  sat  there  arriving  at  it  while  he 
munched  toast  and  stirred  his  second  cup.  To  do  this 
with  the  aid  of  Chad's  pleasant  earnest  face  was  also 
to  do  more  besides.  No,  never  before  had  he  been 
so  ready  to  take  him  as  he  was.  What  was  it  that 
had  suddenly  so  cleared  up  ?  It  was  just  everybody's 
character;  that  is  everybody's  but  —  in  a  measure  — 
his  own.  Strether  felt  his  character  receive  for  the 
instant  a  smutch  from  all  the  wrong  things  he  had 
suspected  or  believed.  The  person  to  whom  Chad 
owed  it  that  he  could  positively  turn  out  such  a  com 
fort  to  other  persons  —  such  a  person  was  sufficiently 
raised  above  any  "breath  "  by  the  nature  of  her  work 
and  the  young  man's  steady  light.  All  of  which  was 
vivid  enough  to  come  and  go  quickly;  though  indeed 
in  the  midst  of  it  Strether  could  utter  a  question. 
"Have  I  your  word  of  honour  that  if  I  surrender 
myself  to  Madame  de  Vionnet  you  '11  surrender  your 
self  to  me?" 

Chad  laid  his  hand  firmly  on  his  friend's.  "  My  dear 
man,  you  have  it." 

There  was  finally  something  in  his  felicity  almost 
embarrassing  and  oppressive  —  Strether  had  begun 
to  fidget  under  it  for  the  open  air  and  the  erect  posture. 
He  had  signed  to  the  waiter  that  he  wished  to  pay,  and 
this  transaction  took  some  moments,  during  which  he 
thoroughly  felt,  while  he  put  down  money  and  pre 
tended  —  it  was  quite  hollow  —  to  estimate  change, 
that  Chad's  higher  spirit,  his  youth,  his  practice,  his 
paganism,  his  felicity,  his  assurance,  his  impudence, 
whatever  it  might  be,  had  consciously  scored  a  sue* 

237 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

cess.  Well,  that  was  all  right  so  far  as  it  went;  his 
sense  of  the  thing  in  question  covered  our  friend  for  a 
minute  like  a  veil  through  which  —  as  if  he  had  been 
muffled  —  he  heard  his  interlocutor  ask  him  if  he 
mightn't  take  him  over  about  five.    "Over"  was  over 
the  river,  and  over  the  river  was  where  Madame  de 
Vionnet  lived,  and  five  was  that  very  afternoon.  They 
got  at  last  out  of  the  place  —  got  out  before  he  an 
swered.   He  lighted,  in  the  street,  a  cigarette,  which 
again  gave  him  more  time.   But  it  was  already  sharp 
for  him  that  there  was  no  use  in  time.   "What  does 
she  propose  to  do  to  me  ?"  he  had  presently  demanded. 
Chad  had  no  delays.   "Are  you  afraid  of  her  ?" 
"  Oh  immensely.   Don't  you  see  it  ? " 
"Well,"  said  Chad,  "she  won't  do  anything  worse 
to  you  than  make  you  like  her." 
"It's  just  of  that  I'm  afraid." 
"Then  it's  not  fair  to  me." 
Strether  cast  about.   "It's  fair  to  your  mother." 
"Oh,"  said  Chad,  "are  you  afraid  of  her?" 
"Scarcely  less.  Or  perhaps  even  more.   But  is  this 
lady  against  your  interests  at  home  ?"  Strether  went  on. 
"Not  directly,  no  doubt;  but  she's  greatly  in  favour 
of  them  here." 

"And  what  —  'here*  —  does  she  consider  them  to 
be?" 

"Well,  good  relations!" 
"With  herself?" 
"With  herself." 

"And  what  is  it  that  makes  them  so  good  ?" 
"What  ?  Well,  that 's  exactly  what  you  '11  make  out 
if  you  '11  only  go,  as  I  'm  supplicating  you,  to  see  her." 

238 


BOOK  FIFTH 

Strether  stared  at  him  with  a  little  of  the  wanness, 
no  doubt,  that  the  vision  of  more  to  "make  out "  could 
scarce  help  producing.  "  I  mean  bow  good  are  they  ? " 

"Oh  awfully  good." 

Again  Strether  had  faltered,  but  it  was  brief.  It  was 
all  very  well,  but  there  was  nothing  now  he  would  n't 
risk.  "  Excuse  me,  but  I  must  really  —  as  I  began  by 
telling  you  —  know  where  I  am.  Is  she  bad  ? " 

" '  Bad '  ? "  —  Chad  echoed  it,  but  without  a  shock. 
"Is  that  what's  implied  —  ?" 

"When  relations  are  good?"  Strether  felt  a  little 
silly,  and  was  even  conscious  of  a  foolish  laugh,  at 
having  it  imposed  on  him  to  have  appeared  to  speak 
so.  What  indeed  was  he  talking  about  ?  His  stare 
had  relaxed ;  he  looked  now  all  round  him.  But  some 
thing  in  him  brought  him  back,  though  he  still  did  n't 
know  quite  how  to  turn  it.  The  two  or  three  ways  he 
thought  of,  and  one  of  them  in  particular,  were,  even 
with  scruples  dismissed,  too  ugly.  He  none  the  less  at 
last  found  something.  "Is  her  life  without  reproach  ?" 

It  struck  him,  directly  he  had  found  it,  as  pompous 
and  priggish ;  so  much  so  that  he  was  thankful  to  Chad 
for  taking  it  only  in  the  right  spirit.  The  young  man 
spoke  so  immensely  to  the  point  that  the  effect  was 
practically  of  positive  blandness.  "Absolutely  with 
out  reproach.  A  beautiful  life.  Allez  done  voir  /" 

These  last  words  were,  in  the  liberality  of  their  con 
fidence,  so  imperative  that  Strether  went  through  no 
form  of  assent;  but  before  they  separated  it  had  been 
confirmed  that  he  should  be  picked  up  at  a  quarter  to 
five. 


BOOK  SIXTH 


IT  was  quite  by  half-past  five  —  after  the  two  men 
had  been  together  in  Madame  de  Vionnet's  drawing- 
room  not  more  than  a  dozen  minutes  —  that  Chad, 
with  a  look  at  his  watch  and  then  another  at  their 
hostess,  said  genially,  gaily:  "I've  an  engagement, 
and  I  know  you  won't  complain  if  I  leave  him  with 
you.  He'll  interest  you  immensely;  and  as  for  her," 
he  declared  to  Strether,  "I  assure  you,  if  you're  at 
all  nervous,  she's  perfectly  safe." 

He  had  left  them  to  be  embarrassed  or  not  by  this 
guarantee,  as  they  could  best  manage,  and  embarrass 
ment  was  a  thing  that  Strether  was  n't  at  first  sure 
Madame  de  Vionnet  escaped.  He  escaped  it  himself, 
to  his  surprise;  but  he  had  grown  used  by  this  time 
to  thinking  of  himself  as  brazen.  She  occupied,  his 
hostess,  in  the  Rue  de  Bellechasse,  the  first  floor  of  an 
old  house  to  which  our  visitors  had  had  access  from 
an  old  clean  court.  The  court  was  large  and  open,  full 
of  revelations,  for  our  friend,  of  the  habit  of  privacy, 
the  peace  of  intervals,  the  dignity  of  distances  and  ap 
proaches;  the  house,  to  his  restless  sense,  was  in  the 
high  homely  style  of  an  elder  day,  and  the  ancient 
Paris  that  he  was  always  looking  for  —  sometimes 
intensely  felt,  sometimes  more  acutely  missed  —  was 
in  the  immemorial  polish  of  the  wide  waxed  staircase 
and  in  the  fine  boiseries,  the  medallions,  mouldings, 
mirrors,  great  clear  spaces,  of  the  greyish-white  salon 

243 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

into  which  he  had  been  shown.  He  seemed  at  the  very 
outset  to  see  her  in  the  midst  of  possessions  not  vul 
garly  numerous,  but  hereditary  cherished  charming. 
While  his  eyes  turned  after  a  little  from  those  of  his 
hostess  and  Chad  freely  talked  —  not  in  the  least 
about  him,  but  about  other  people,  people  he  did  n't 
know,  and  quite  as  if  he  did  know  them  —  he  found 
himself  making  out,  as  a  background  of  the  occupant, 
some  glory,  some  prosperity  of  the  First  Empire,  some 
Napoleonic  glamour,  some  dim  lustre  of  the  great 
legend;  elements  clinging  still  to  all  the  consular 
chairs  and  mythological  brasses  and  sphinxes'  heads 
and  faded  surfaces  of  satin  striped  with  alternate  silk. 
The  place  itself  went  further  back  —  that  he 
guessed,  and  how  old  Paris  continued  in  a  manner 
to  echo  there;  but  the  post-revolutionary  period,  the 
world  he  vaguely  thought  of  as  the  world  of  Chateau 
briand,  of  Madame  de  Stael,  even  of  the  young  La- 
martine,  had  left  its  stamp  of  harps  and  urns  and 
torches,  a  stamp  impressed  on  sundry  small  objects, 
ornaments  and  relics.  He  had  never  before,  to  his 
knowledge,  had  present  to  him  relics,  of  any  special 
dignity,  of  a  private  order  —  little  old  miniatures,  me 
dallions,  pictures,  books;  books  in  leather  bindings, 
pinkish  and  greenish,  with  gilt  garlands  on  the  back, 
ranged,  together  with  other  promiscuous  properties, 
under  the  glass  of  brass-mounted  cabinets.  His  atten 
tion  took  them  all  tenderly  into  account.  They  were 
among  the  matters  that  marked  Madame  de  Vionnet's 
apartment  as  something  quite  different  from  Miss 
Gostrey's  little  museum  of  bargains  and  from  Chad's 
lovely  home;  he  recognised  it  as  founded  much  more 

244 


BOOK  SIXTH 

on  old  accumulations  that  had  possibly  from  time  to 
time  shrunken  than  on  any  contemporary  method  of 
acquisition  or  form  of  curiosity.  Chad  and  Miss  Gos- 
trey  had  rummaged  and  purchased  and  picked  up 
and  exchanged,  sifting,  selecting,  comparing;  whereas 
the  mistress  of  the  scene  before  him,  beautifully  pass 
ive  under  the  spell  of  transmission  —  transmission 
from  her  father's  line,  he  quite  made  up  his  mind  — 
had  only  received,  accepted  and  been  quiet.  When  she 
had  n't  been  quiet  she  had  been  moved  at  the  most 
to  some  occult  charity  for  some  fallen  fortune.  There 
had  been  objects  she  or  her  predecessors  might  even 
conceivably  have  parted  with  under  need,  but  Strether 
could  n't  suspect  them  of  having  sold  old  pieces  to  get 
"  better  "  ones.  They  would  have  felt  no  difference  as 
to  better  or  worse.  He  could  but  imagine  their  having 
felt  —  perhaps  in  emigration,  in  proscription,  for  his 
sketch  was  slight  and  confused  —  the  pressure  of  want 
or  the  obligation  of  sacrifice. 

The  pressure  of  want  —  whatever  might  be  the 
case  with  the  other  force  —  was,  however,  presum 
ably  not  active  now,  for  the  tokens  of  a  chastened 
ease  still  abounded  after  all,  many  marks  of  a  taste 
whose  discriminations  might  perhaps  have  been  called 
eccentric.  He  guessed  at  intense  little  preferences  and 
sharp  little  exclusions,  a  deep  suspicion  of  the  vulgar 
and  a  personal  view  of  the  right.  The  general  result 
of  this  was  something  for  which  he  had  no  name  on 
the  spot  quite  ready,  but  something  he  would  have 
come  nearest  to  naming  in  speaking  of  it  as  the  air  of 
supreme  respectability,  the  consciousness,  small,  still, 
reserved,  but  none  the  less  distinct  and  diffused,  of 

245 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

private  honour.  The  air  of  supreme  respectability  — 
that  was  a  strange  blank  wall  for  his  adventure  to 
have  brought  him  to  break  his  nose  against.  It  had  in 
fact,  as  he  was  now  aware,  filled  all  the  approaches, 
hovered  in  the  court  as  he  passed,  hung  on  the  stair 
case  as  he  mounted,  sounded  in  the  grave  rumble  of 
the  old  bell,  as  little  electric  as  possible,  of  which 
Chad,  at  the  door,  had  pulled  the  ancient  but  neatly- 
kept  tassel ;  it  formed  in  short  the  clearest  medium  of 
its  particular  kind  that  he  had  ever  breathed.  He 
would  have  answered  for  it  at  the  end  of  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  that  some  of  the  glass  cases  contained  swords 
and  epaulettes  of  ancient  colonels  and  generals; 
medals  and  orders  once  pinned  over  hearts  that  had 
long  since  ceased  to  beat;  snuff-boxes  bestowed  on 
ministers  and  envoys;  copies  of  works  presented,  with 
inscriptions,  by  authors  now  classic.  At  bottom  of  it 
all  for  him  was  the  sense  of  her  rare  unlikeness  to  the 
women  he  had  known.  This  sense  had  grown,  since 
the  day  before,  the  more  he  recalled  her,  and  had  been 
above  all  singularly  fed  by  his  talk  with  Chad  in  the 
morning.  Everything  in  fine  made  her  immeasurably 
new,  and  nothing  so  new  as  the  old  house  and  the  old 
objects.  There  were  books,  two  or  three,  on  a  small 
table  near  his  chair,  but  they  had  n't  the  lemon- 
coloured  covers  with  which  his  eye  had  begun  to  dally 
from  the  hour  of  his  arrival  and  to  the  opportunity  of 
a  further  acquaintance  with  which  he  had  for  a  fort 
night  now  altogether  succumbed.  On  another  table, 
across  the  room,  he  made  out  the  great  Revue;  but 
even  that  familiar  face,  conspicuous  in  Mrs.  New- 
some's  parlours,  scarce  counted  here  as  a  modern 

246 


BOOK  SIXTH 

note.  He  was  sure  on  the  spot  —  and  he  afterwards 
knew  he  was  right  —  that  this  was  a  touch  of  Chad's 
own  hand.  What  would  Mrs.  Newsome  say  to  the 
circumstance  that  Chad's  interested  "influence" 
kept  her  paper-knife  in  the  Revue?  The  interested  in 
fluence  at  any  rate  had,  as  we  say,  gone  straight  to 
the  point  —  had  in  fact  soon  left  it  quite  behind. 

She  was  seated,  near  the  fire,  on  a  small  stuffed  and 
fringed  chair,  one  of  the  few  modern  articles  in  the 
room;  and  she  leaned  back  in  it  with  her  hands 
clasped  in  her  lap  and  no  movement,  in  all  her  person, 
but  the  fine  prompt  play  of  her  deep  young  face.  The 
fire,  under  the  low  white  marble,  undraped  and  aca 
demic,  had  burnt  down  to  the  silver  ashes  of  light 
wood ;  one  of  the  windows,  at  a  distance,  stood  open 
to  the  mildness  and  stillness,  out  of  which,  in  the  short 
pauses,  came  the  faint  sound,  pleasant  and  homely, 
almost  rustic,  of  a  plash  and  a  clatter  of  sabots  from 
some  coach-house  on  the  other  side  of  the  court. 
Madame  de  Vionnet,  while  Strether  sat  there,  was  n't 
to  shift  her  posture  by  an  inch.  "I  don't  think  you 
seriously  believe  in  what  you're  doing,"  she  said; 
"  but  all  the  same,  you  know,  I  'm  going  to  treat  you 
quite  as  if  I  did." 

"By  which  you  mean,"  Strether  directly  replied, 
"  quite  as  if  you  did  n't !  I  assure  you  it  won't  make 
the  least  difference  with  me  how  you  treat  me." 

"Well,"  she  said,  taking  that  menace  bravely  and 
philosophically  enough,  "the  only  thing  that  really 
matters  is  that  you  shall  get  on  with  me." 

"Ah  but  I  don't!"  he  immediately  returned. 

It  gave  her  another  pause;  which,  however,  she 
247 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

happily  enough  shook  off.   "Will  you  consent  to  go 
on  with  me  a  little  —  provisionally  —  as  if  you  did  ?" 

Then  it  was  that  he  saw  how  she  had  decidedly 
come  all  the  way;  and  there  accompanied  it  an  extra 
ordinary  sense  of  her  raising  from  somewhere  below 
him  her  beautiful  suppliant  eyes.  He  might  have  been 
perched  at  his  door-step  or  at  his  window  and  she 
standing  in  the  road.  For  a  moment  he  let  her  stand 
and  could  n't  moreover  have  spoken.  It  had  been  sad, 
of  a  sudden,  with  a  sadness  that  was  like  a  cold  breath 
in  his  face.  "  What  can  I  do,"  he  finally  asked,  "  but 
listen  to  you  as  I  promised  Chadwick?" 

"Ah  but  what  I'm  asking  you,"  she  quickly  said, 
"is  n't  what  Mr.  Newsome  had  in  mind."  She  spoke 
at  present,  he  saw,  as  if  to  take  courageously  all  her 
risk.  "This  is  my  own  idea  and  a  different  thing." 

It  gave  poor  Strether  in  truth  —  uneasy  as  it  made 
him  too  —  something  of  the  thrill  of  a  bold  percep 
tion  justified.  "Well,"  he  answered  kindly  enough, 
"  I  was  sure  a  moment  since  that  some  idea  of  your 
own  had  come  to  you." 

She  seemed  still  to  look  up  at  him,  but  now  more 
serenely.  "  I  made  out  you  were  sure  —  and  that 
helped  it  to  come.  So  you  see,"  she  continued,  "we 
do  get  on." 

"  Oh  but  it  appears  to  me  I  don't  at  all  meet  your 
request.  How  can  I  when  I  don't  understand  it?" 

"  It  is  n't  at  all  necessary  you  should  understand ; 
it  will  do  quite  well  enough  if  you  simply  remember 
it.  Only  feel  I  trust  you  —  and  for  nothing  so  tre 
mendous  after  all.  Just,"  she  said  with  a  wonderful 
smile,  "for  common  civility." 

248 


BOOK  SIXTH 

Strether  had  a  long  pause  while  they  sat  again  face 
to  face,  as  they  had  sat,  scarce  less  conscious,  before 
the  poor  lady  had  crossed  the  stream.  She  was  the 
poor  lady  for  Strether  now  because  clearly  she  had 
some  trouble,  and  her  appeal  to  him  could  only  mean 
that  her  trouble  was  deep.  He  could  n't  help  it;  it 
was  n't  his  fault;  he  had  done  nothing;  but  by  a  turn 
of  the  hand  she  had  somehow  made  their  encounter 
a  relation.  And  the  relation  profited  by  a  mass  of 
things  that  were  not  strictly  in  it  or  of  it;  by  the 
very  air  in  which  they  sat,  by  the  high  cold  delicate 
room,  by  the  world  outside  and  the  little  plash  in 
the  court,  by  the  First  Empire  and  the  relics  in  the 
stiff  cabinets,  by  matters  as  far  off  as  those  and  by 
others  as  near  as  the  unbroken  clasp  of  her  hands 
in  her  lap  and  the  look  her  expression  had  of  being 
most  natural  when  her  eyes  were  most  fixed.  "You 
count  upon  me  of  course  for  something  really  much 
greater  than  it  sounds." 

"Oh  it  sounds  great  enough  too!"  she  laughed  at 
this. 

He  found  himself  in  time  on  the  point  of  telling  her 
that  she  was,  as  Miss  Barrace  called  it,  wonderful; 
but,  catching  himself  up,  he  said  something  else  in 
stead.  "What  was  it  Chad's  idea  then  that  you  should 
say  to  me  ? " 

"Ah  his  idea  was  simply  what  a  man's  idea  always 
is  —  to  put  every  effort  off  on  the  woman." 

"The  'woman' —  ?"  Strether  slowly  echoed. 

"The  woman  he  likes  —  and  just  in  proportion  as 
he  likes  her.  In  proportion  too  —  for  shifting  the 
trouble  —  as  she  likes  him" 

249 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Strether  followed  it ;  then  with  an  abruptness  of  his 
own:  "How  much  do  you  like  Chad  ?" 

"Just  as  much  as  that  —  to  take  all,  with  you,  on 
myself."  But  she  got  at  once  again  away  from  this. 
"  I  Ve  been  trembling  as  if  we  were  to  stand  or  fall  by 
what  you  may  think  of  me;  and  I'm  even  now,"  she 
went  on  wonderfully,  "  drawing  a  long  breath  —  and, 
yes,  truly  taking  a  great  courage  —  from  the  hope 
that  I  don't  in  fact  strike  you  as  impossible." 

"That's  at  all  events,  clearly,"  he  observed  after  an 
instant,  "the  way  I  don't  strike  you." 

"Well,"  she  so  far  assented,  "as  you  haven't  yet 
said  you  worit  have  the  little  patience  with  me  I  ask 
for—" 

"You  draw  splendid  conclusions  ?  Perfectly.  But 
I  don't  understand  them,"  Strether  pursued.  "You 
seem  to  me  to  ask  for  much  more  than  you  need. 
What,  at  the  worst  for  you,  what  at  the  best  for  my 
self,  can  I  after  all  do  ?  I  can  use  no  pressure  that  I 
have  n't  used.  You  come  really  late  with  your  re 
quest.  I  Ve  already  done  all  that  for  myself  the  case 
admits  of.  I  Ve  said  my  say,  and  here  I  am." 

"Yes,  here  you  are,  fortunately!"  Madame  de 
Vionnet  laughed.  "Mrs.  Newsome,"  she  added  in 
another  tone,  "did  n't  think  you  can  do  so  little." 

He  had  an  hesitation,  but  he  brought  the  words 
out.  "Well,  she  thinks  so  now." 

"Do  you  mean  by  that  —  ?"  But  she  also  hung 
fire. 

"  Do  I  mean  what  ? " 

She  still  rather  faltered.  "  Pardon  me  if  I  touch  on 
it,  but  if  I  'm  saying  extraordinary  things,  why,  per- 

250 


BOOK  SIXTH 

haps,  may  n't  I  ?  Besides,  does  n't  it  properly  concern 
us  to  know  ? " 

"To  know  what  ?"  he  insisted  as  after  thus  beating 
about  the  bush  she  had  again  dropped. 

She  made  the  effort.   "  Has  she  given  you  up  ? " 

He  was  amazed  afterwards  to  think  how  simply  and 
quietly  he  had  met  it.  "Not  yet."  It  was  almost  as 
if  he  were  a  trifle  disappointed  —  had  expected  still 
more  of  her  freedom.  But  he  went  straight  on.  "  Is 
that  what  Chad  has  told  you  will  happen  to  me  ? " 

She  was  evidently  charmed  with  the  way  he  took  it. 
"  If  you  mean  if  we  've  talked  of  it  —  most  certainly. 
And  the  question 's  not  what  has  had  least  to  do  with 
my  wishing  to  see  you." 

"To  judge  if  I'm  the  sort  of  man  a  woman 
can—  ?" 

"Precisely,"  she  exclaimed —  "you  wonderful  gen 
tleman  !  I  do  judge  —  I  have  judged.  A  woman 
can't.  You  're  safe  —  with  every  right  to  be.  You  'd 
be  much  happier  if  you  'd  only  believe  it." 

Strether  was  silent  a  little;  then  he  found  himself 
speaking  with  a  cynicism  of  confidence  of  which  even 
at  the  moment  the  sources  were  strange  to  him.  "I 
try  to  believe  it.  But  it's  a  marvel,"  he  exclaimed, 
"how  you  already  get  at  it!" 

Oh  she  was  able  to  say.  "  Remember  how  much 
I  was  on  the  way  to  it  through  Mr.  Newsome 
— before  I  saw  you.  He  thinks  everything  of  your 
strength." 

"Well,  I  can  bear  almost  anything!"  our  friend 
briskly  interrupted.  Deep  and  beautiful  on  this  her 
smile  came  back,  and  with  the  effect  of  making  him 

251 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

hear  what  he  had  said  just  as  she  had  heard  it.  He 
easily  enough  felt  that  it  gave  him  away,  but  what  in 
truth  had  everything  done  but  that  ?  It  had  been  all 
very  well  to  think  at  moments  that  he  was  holding  her 
nose  down  and  that  he  had  coerced  her :  what  had  he 
by  this  time  done  but  let  her  practically  see  that  he 
accepted  their  relation  ?  What  was  their  relation 
moreover  —  though  light  and  brief  enough  in  form  as 
yet  —  but  whatever  she  might  choose  to  make  it  ? 
Nothing  could  prevent  her  —  certainly  he  could  n't 
—  from  making  it  pleasant.  At  the  back  of  his  head, 
behind  everything,  was  the  sense  that  she  was  — 
there,  before  him,  close  to  him,  in  vivid  imperative 
form  —  one  of  the  rare  women  he  had  so  often  heard 
of,  read  of,  thought  of,  but  never  met,  whose  very 
presence,  look,  voice,  the  mere  contemporaneous  fact 
of  whom,  from  the  moment  it  was  at  all  presented, 
made  a  relation  of  mere  recognition.  That  was  not 
the  kind  of  woman  he  had  ever  found  Mrs.  Newsome, 
a  contemporaneous  fact  who  had  been  distinctly  slow 
to  establish  herself;  and  at  present,  confronted  with 
Madame  de  Vionnet,  he  felt  the  simplicity  of  his  orig 
inal  impression  of  Miss  Gostrey.  She  certainly  had 
been  a  fact  of  rapid  growth ;  but  the  world  was  wide, 
each  day  was  more  and  more  a  new  lesson.  There 
were  at  any  rate  even  among  the  stranger  ones  rela 
tions  and  relations.  "Of  course  I  suit  Chad's  grand 
way,"  he  quickly  added.  "He  has  n't  had  much  dif 
ficulty  in  working  me  in." 

She  seemed  to  deny  a  little,  on  the  young  man's  be 
half,  by  the  rise  of  her  eyebrows,  an  intention  of  any 
process  at  all  inconsiderate.  "You  must  know  how 

252 


BOOK  SIXTH 

grieved  he  'd  be  if  you  were  to  lose  anything.  He  be 
lieves  you  can  keep  his  mother  patient." 

Strether  wondered  with  his  eyes  on  her.  "I  see. 
That 's  then  what  you  really  want  of  me.  And  how  am 
I  to  do  it  ?  Perhaps  you  '11  tell  me  that." 

"Simply  tell  her  the  truth." 

"And  what  do  you  call  the  truth  ?" 

"Well,  any  truth  —  about  us  all  —  that  you  see 
yourself.  I  leave  it  to  you." 

"Thank  you  very  much.  I  like,"  Strether  laughed 
with  a  slight  harshness,  "  the  way  you  leave  things ! " 

But  she  insisted  kindly,  gently,  as  if  it  was  n't  so 
bad.  "Be  perfectly  honest.  Tell  her  all." 

"All?"  he  oddly  echoed. 

"Tell  her  the  simple  truth,"  Madame  de  Vionnet 
again  pleaded. 

"  But  what  is  the  simple  truth  ?  The  simple  truth  is 
exactly  what  I  'm  trying  to  discover." 

She  looked  about  a  while,  but  presently  she  came 
back  to  him.  "Tell  her,  fully  and  clearly,  about  us" 

Strether  meanwhile  had  been  staring.  "You  and 
your  daughter  ? " 

"Yes  —  little  Jeanne  and  me.  Tell  her,"  she  just 
slightly  quavered,  "you  like  us." 

"And  what  good  will  that  do  me  ?  Or  rather"  — 
he  caught  himself  up  —  "what  good  will  it  do  you?" 

She  looked  graver.    "None,  you  believe,  really?" 

Strether  debated.  "She  did  n't  send  me  out  to 
Mike 'you." 

"Oh,"  she  charmingly  contended,  "she  sent  you 
out  to  face  the  facts." 

He  admitted  after  an  instant  that  there  was  some- 

253 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

thing  in  that.  "  But  how  can  I  face  them  till  I  know 
what  they  are  ?  Do  you  want  him,"  he  then  braced 
himself  to  ask,  "  to  marry  your  daughter  ? " 

She  gave  a  headshake  as  noble  as  it  was  prompt. 
"No  — not  that." 

"And  he  really  does  n't  want  to  himself?" 

She  repeated  the  movement,  but  now  with  a  strange 
light  in  her  face.  "He  likes  her  too  much." 

Strether  wondered.  "To  be  willing  to  consider,  you 
mean,  the  question  of  taking  her  to  America  ? " 

"To  be  willing  to  do  anything  with  her  but  be 
immensely  kind  and  nice  — really  tender  of  her.  We 
watch  over  her,  and  you  must  help  us.  You  must  see 
her  again." 

Strether  felt  awkward.  "Ah  with  pleasure  —  she's 
so  remarkably  attractive." 

The  mother's  eagerness  with  which  Madame  de 
Vionnet  jumped  at  this  was  to  come  back  to  him  later 
as  beautiful  in  its  grace.  "The  dear  thing  did  please 
you  ? "  Then  as  he  met  it  with  the  largest  "  Oh ! "  of 
enthusiasm:  "She's  perfect.  She's  my  joy." 

"Well,  I'm  sure  that  —  if  one  were  near  her  and 
saw  more  of  her  —  she'd  be  mine." 

"Then,"  said  Madame  de  Vionnet,  "tell  Mrs. 
Newsome  that!" 

He  wondered  the  more.  "What  good  will  that 
do  you  ? "  As  she  appeared  unable  at  once  to  say, 
however,  he  brought  out  something  else.  "Is  your 
daughter  in  love  with  our  friend  ? " 

"Ah,"  she  rather  startlingly  answered,  "I  wish 
you'd  find  out!" 

He  showed  his  surprise.   "  I  ?  A  stranger  ? " 
254 


BOOK  SIXTH 

"Oh  you  won't  be  a  stranger  —  presently.  You 
shall  see  her  quite,  I  assure  you,  as  if  you  were  n't." 

It  remained  for  him  none  the  less  an  extraordinary 
notion.  "It  seems  to  me  surely  that  if  her  mother 
can't—" 

"Ah  little  girls  and  their  mothers  to-day!"  she 
rather  inconsequently  broke  in.  But  she  checked 
herself  with  something  she  seemed  to  give  out  as 
after  all  more  to  the  point.  "Tell  her  I  've  been  good 
for  him.  Don't  you  think  I  have  ?" 

It  had  its  effect  on  him  —  more  than  at  the  mo 
ment  he  quite  measured.  Yet  he  was  consciously 
enough  touched.  "Oh  if  it's  all  you  — !" 

"Well,  it  may  not  be  'all,'"  she  interrupted,  "but 
it 's  to  a  great  extent.  Really  and  truly,"  she  added  in 
a  tone  that  was  to  take  its  place  with  him  among 
things  remembered. 

"Then  it's  very  wonderful."  He  smiled  at  her 
from  a  face  that  he  felt  as  strained,  and  her  own  face 
for  a  moment  kept  him  so.  At  last  she  also  got  up. 
"Well,  don't  you  think  that  for  that — " 

"I  ought  to  save  you  ?"  So  it  was  that  the  way  to 
meet  her  —  and  the  way,  as  well,  in  a  manner,  to  get 
off  —  came  over  him.  He  heard  himself  use  the 
exorbitant  word,  the  very  sound  of  which  helped  to 
determine  his  flight.  "  I  '11  save  you  if  I  can." 


II 


IN  Chad's  lovely  home,  however,  one  evening  ten 
days  later,  he  felt  himself  present  at  the  collapse  of  the 
question  of  Jeanne  de  Vionnet's  shy  secret.  He  had 
been  dining  there  in  the  company  of  that  young  lady 
and  her  mother,  as  well  as  of  other  persons,  and  he 
had  gone  into  the  petit  salon,  at  Chad's  request,  on 
purpose  to  talk  with  her.  The  young  man  had  put 
this  to  him  as  a  favour  —  "I  should  like  so  awfully  to 
know  what  you  think  of  her.  It  will  really  be  a  chance 
for  you,"  he  had  said,  "to  see  the  jeune  fille  —  I  mean 
the  type  —  as  she  actually  is,  and  I  don't  think  that, 
as  an  observer  of  manners,  it 's  a  thing  you  ought  to 
miss.  It  will  be  an  impression  that  —  whatever  else 
you  take — you  can  carry  home  with  you,  where  you  '11 
find  again  so  much  to  compare  it  with." 

Strether  knew  well  enough  with  what  Chad  wished 
him  to  compare  it,  and  though  he  entirely  assented 
he  had  n't  yet  somehow  been  so  deeply  reminded  that 
he  was  being,  as  he  constantly  though  mutely  ex 
pressed  it,  used.  He  was  as  far  as  ever  from  making 
out  exactly  to  what  end ;  but  he  was  none  the  less  con 
stantly  accompanied  by  a  sense  of  the  service  he  ren 
dered.  He  conceived  only  that  this  service  was  highly 
agreeable  to  those  who  profited  by  it ;  and  he  was  in 
deed  still  waiting  for  the  moment  at  which  he  should 
catch  it  in  the  act  of  proving  disagreeable,  proving  in 
some  degree  intolerable,  to  himself.  He  failed  quite  to 

256 


BOOK  SIXTH 

see  how  his  situation  could  clear  up  at  all  logically 
except  by  some  turn  of  events  that  would  give  him  the 
pretext  of  disgust.  He  was  building  from  day  to  day 
on  the  possibility  of  disgust,  but  each  day  brought 
forth  meanwhile  a  new  and  more  engaging  bend  of 
the  road.  That  possibility  was  now  ever  so  much 
further  from  sight  than  on  the  eve  of  his  arrival,  and 
he  perfectly  felt  that,  should  it  come  at  all,  it  would 
have  to  be  at  best  inconsequent  and  violent.  He 
struck  himself  as  a  little  nearer  to  it  only  when  he 
asked  himself  what  service,  in  such  a  life  of  utility, 
he  was  after  all  rendering  Mrs.  Newsome.  When  he 
wished  to  help  himself  to  believe  that  he  was  still  all 
right  he  reflected  —  and  in  fact  with  wonder  —  on 
the  unimpaired  frequency  of  their  correspondence; 
in  relation  to  which  what  was  after  all  more  natural 
than  that  it  should  become  more  frequent  just  in  pro 
portion  as  their  problem  became  more  complicated  ? 
Certain  it  is  at  any  rate  that  he  now  often  brought 
himself  balm  by  the  question,  with  the  rich  conscious 
ness  of  yesterday's  letter,  "  Well,  what  can  I  do  more 
than  that  —  what  can  I  do  more  than  tell  her  every 
thing  ?"  To  persuade  himself  that  he  did  tell  her,  had 
told  her,  everything,  he  used  to  try  to  think  of  par 
ticular  things  he  had  n't  told  her.  When  at  rare  mo 
ments  and  in  the  watches  of  the  night  he  pounced  on 
one  it  generally  showed  itself  to  be  —  to  a  deeper 
scrutiny  —  not  quite  truly  of  the  essence.  When  any 
thing  new  struck  him  as  coming  up,  or  anything 
already  noted  as  reappearing,  he  always  immediately 
wrote,  as  if  for  fear  that  if  he  did  n't  he  would  miss 
something;  and  also  that  he  might  be  able  to  say  to 

257 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

himself  from  time  to  time  "  She  knows  it  now  —  even 
while  I  worry."  It  was  a  great  comfort  to  him  in  gen 
eral  not  to  have  left  past  things  to  be  dragged  to  light 
and  explained;  not  to  have  to  produce  at  so  late  a 
stage  anything  not  produced,  or  anything  even  veiled 
and  attenuated,  at  the  moment.  She  knew  it  now: 
that  was  what  he  said  to  himself  to-night  in  relation  to 
the  fresh  fact  of  Chad's  acquaintance  with  the  two 
ladies  —  not  to  speak  of  the  fresher  one  of  his  own. 
Mrs.  Newsome  knew  in  other  words  that  very  night 
at  Woollett  that  he  himself  knew  Madame  de  Vionnet 
and  that  he  had  conscientiously  been  to  see  her;  also 
that  he  had  found  her  remarkably  attractive  and  that 
there  would  probably  be  a  good  deal  more  to  tell.  But 
she  further  knew,  or  would  know  very  soon,  that, 
again  conscientiously,  he  had  n't  repeated  his  visit ; 
and  that  when  Chad  had  asked  him  on  the  Countess's 
behalf — Strether  made  her  out  vividly,  with  a  thought 
at  the  back  of  his  head,  a  Countess  —  if  he  would  n't 
name  a  day  for  dining  with  her,  he  had  replied  lucidly : 
"Thank  you  very  much  —  impossible."  He  had 
begged  the  young  man  would  present  his  excuses  and 
had  trusted  him  to  understand  that  it  could  n't  really 
strike  one  as  quite  the  straight  thing.  He  had  n't 
reported  to  Mrs.  Newsome  that  he  had  promised  to 
"save"  Madame  de  Vionnet;  but,  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned  with  that  reminiscence,  he  had  n't  at  any 
rate  promised  to  haunt  her  house.  What  Chad  had 
understood  could  only,  in  truth,  be  inferred  from 
Chad's  behaviour,  which  had  been  in  this  connexion 
as  easy  as  in  every  other.  He  was  easy,  always,  when 
he  understood;  he  was  easier  still,  if  possible,  when  he 

258 


BOOK  SIXTH 

did  n't;  he  had  replied  that  he  would  make  it  all  right; 
and  he  had  proceeded  to  do  this  by  substituting  the 
present  occasion  —  as  he  was  ready  to  substitute 
others  —  for  any,  for  every  occasion  as  to  which  his 
old  friend  should  have  a  funny  scruple. 

"Oh  but  I'm  not  a  little  foreign  girl;  I'm  just  as 
English  as  I  can  be,"  Jeanne  de  Vionnet  had  said  to 
him  as  soon  as,  in  the  petit  salon,  he  sank,  shyly 
enough  on  his  own  side,  into  the  place  near  her  vacated 
by  Madame  Gloriani  at  his  approach.  Madame 
Gloriani,  who  was  in  black  velvet,  with  white  lace  and 
powdered  hair,  and  whose  somewhat  massive  majesty 
melted,  at  any  contact,  into  the  graciousness  of  some 
incomprehensible  tongue,  moved  away  to  make  room 
for  the  vague  gentleman,  after  benevolent  greetings  to 
him  which  embodied,  as  he  believed,  in  baffling 
accents,  some  recognition  of  his  face  from  a  couple  of 
Sundays  before.  Then  he  had  remarked  —  making 
the  most  of  the  advantage  of  his  years  —  that  it  fright 
ened  him  quite  enough  to  find  himself  dedicated  to 
the  entertainment  of  a  little  foreign  girl.  There  were 
girls  he  wasn't  afraid  of — he  was  quite  bold  with 
little  Americans.  Thus  it  was  that  she  had  defended 
herself  to  the  end  —  "Oh  but  I'm  almost  American 
too.  That's  what  mamma  has  wanted  me  to  be  —  I 
mean  like  that;  for  she  has  wanted  me  to  have  lots  of 
freedom.  She  has  known  such  good  results  from  it." 

She  was  fairly  beautiful  to  him  —  a  faint  pastel  in 
an  oval  frame :  he  thought  of  her  already  as  of  some 
lurking  image  in  a  long  gallery,  the  portrait  of  a  small 
old-time  princess  of  whom  nothing  was  known  but 
that  she  had  died  young.  Little  Jeanne  was  n't, 

259 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

doubtless,  to  die  young,  but  one  could  n't,  all  the 
same,  bear  on  her  lightly  enough.  It  was  bearing 
hard,  it  was  bearing  as  be,  in  any  case,  would  n't  bear, 
to  concern  himself,  in  relation  to  her,  with  the  ques 
tion  of  a  young  man.  Odious  really  the  question  of  a 
young  man;  one  did  n't  treat  such  a  person  as  a  maid 
servant  suspected  of  a  "follower."  And  then  young 
men,  young  men  — well,  the  thing  was  their  business 
simply,  or  was  at  all  events  hers.  She  was  fluttered, 
fairly  fevered  —  to  the  point  of  a  little  glitter  that 
came  and  went  in  her  eyes  and  a  pair  of  pink  spots 
that  stayed  in  her  cheeks  —  with  the  great  adventure 
of  dining  out  and  with  the  greater  one  still,  possibly, 
of  finding  a  gentleman  whom  she  must  think  of  as 
very,  very  old,  a  gentleman  with  eye-glasses,  wrinkles, 
a  long  grizzled  moustache.  She  spoke  the  prettiest 
English,  our  friend  thought,  that  he  had  ever  heard 
spoken,  just  as  he  had  believed  her  a  few  minutes 
before  to  be  speaking  the  prettiest  French.  He  won 
dered  almost  wistfully  if  such  a  sweep  of  the  lyre  did  n't 
react  on  the  spirit  itself;  and  his  fancy  had  in  fact, 
before  he  knew  it,  begun  so  to  stray  and  embroider 
that  he  finally  found  himself,  absent  and  extravagant, 
sitting  with  the  child  in  a  friendly  silence.  Only  by 
this  time  he  felt  her  flutter  to  have  fortunately  dropped 
and  that  she  was  more  at  her  ease.  She  trusted  him, 
liked  him,  and  it  was  to  come  back  to  him  afterwards 
that  she  had  told  him  things.  She  had  dipped  into  the 
waiting  medium  at  last  and  found  neither  surge  nor 
chill  —  nothing  but  the  small  splash  she  could  herself 
make  in  the  pleasant  warmth,  nothing  but  the  safety 
of  dipping  and  dipping  again.  At  the  end  of  the  ten 

260 


BOOK  SIXTH 

minutes  he  was  to  spend  with  her  his  impression 
—  with  all  it  had  thrown  off  and  all  it  had  taken 
in  —  was  complete.  She  had  been  free,  as  she  knew 
freedom,  partly  to  show  him  that,  unlike  other  little 
persons  she  knew,  she  had  imbibed  that  ideal.  She 
was  delightfully  quaint  about  herself,  but  the  vision 
of  what  she  had  imbibed  was  what  most  held  him.  It 
really  consisted,  he  was  soon  enough  to  feel,  in  just 
one  great  little  matter,  the  fact  that,  whatever  her 
nature,  she  was  thoroughly —  he  had  to  cast  about  for 
the  word,  but  it  came  —  bred.  He  could  n't  of  course 
on  so  short  an  acquaintance  speak  for  her  nature,  but 
the  idea  of  breeding  was  what  she  had  meanwhile 
dropped  into  his  mind.  He  had  never  yet  known  it  so 
sharply  presented.  Her  mother  gave  it,  no  doubt;  but 
her  mother,  to  make  that  less  sensible,  gave  so  much 
else  besides-,  and  on  neither  of  the  two  previous  occa 
sions,  extraordinary  woman,  Strether  felt,  anything 
like  what  she  was  giving  to-night.  Little  Jeanne  was 
a  case,  an  exquisite  case  of  education;  whereas  the 
Countess,  whom  it  so  amused  him  to  think  of  by  that 
denomination,  was  a  case,  also  exquisite,  of — well, 
he  did  n't  know  what. 

"  He  has  wonderful  taste,  notre  jeune  homme  " :  this 
was  what  Gloriani  said  to  him  on  turning  away  from 
the  inspection  of  a  small  picture  suspended  near  the 
door  of  the  room.  The  high  celebrity  in  question  had 
just  come  in,  apparently  in  search  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Vionnet,  but  while  Strether  had  got  up  from  beside 
her  their  fellow  guest,  with  his  eye  sharply  caught,  had 
paused  for  a  long  look.  The  thing  was  a  landscape,  of 
no  size,  but  of  the  French  school,  as  our  friend  was 

261 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

glad  to  feel  he  knew,  and  also  of  a  quality  —  which  he 
liked  to  think  he  should  also  have  guessed ;  its  frame 
was  large  out  of  proportion  to  the  canvas,  and  he  had 
never  seen  a  person  look  at  anything,  he  thought,  just 
as  Gloriani,  with  his  nose  very  near  and  quick  move 
ments  of  the  head  from  side  to  side  and  bottom  to  top, 
examined  this  feature  of  Chad's  collection.  The  artist 
used  that  word  the  next  moment,  smiling  courteously, 
wiping  his  nippers  and  looking  round  him  further  — 
paying  the  place  in  short  by  the  very  manner  of  his 
presence  and  by  something  Strether  fancied  he  could 
make  out  in  this  particular  glance,  such  a  tribute  as, 
to  the  latter's  sense,  settled  many  things  once  for  all. 
Strether  was  conscious  at  this  instant,  for  that  matter, 
as  he  had  n't  yet  been,  of  how,  round  about  him,  quite 
without  him,  they  we  re  consistently  settled.  Gloriani's 
smile,  deeply  Italian,  he  considered,  and  finely  in 
scrutable,  had  had  for  him,  during  dinner,  at  which 
they  were  not  neighbours,  an  indefinite  greeting;  but 
the  quality  in  it  was  gone  that  had  appeared  on  the 
other  occasion  to  turn  him  inside  out;  it  was  as  if  even 
the  momentary  link  supplied  by  the  doubt  between 
them  had  snapped.  He  was  conscious  now  of  the  final 
reality,  which  was  that  there  was  n't  so  much  a  doubt 
as  a  difference  altogether ;  all  the  more  that  over  the 
difference  the  famous  sculptor  seemed  to  signal  almost 
condolingly,  yet  oh  how  vacantly!  as  across  some 
great  flat  sheet  of  water.  He  threw  out  the  bridge  of  a 
charming  hollow  civility  on  which  Strether  would  n't 
have  trusted  his  own  full  weight  a  moment.  That  idea, 
even  though  but  transient  and  perhaps  belated,  had 
performed  the  office  of  putting  Strether  more  at  his 

262 


BOOK  SIXTH 

ease,  and  the  blurred  picture  had  already  dropped  — 
dropped  with  the  sound  of  something  else  said  and 
with  his  becoming  aware,  by  another  quick  turn,  that 
Gloriani  was  now  on  the  sofa  talking  with  Jeanne, 
while  he  himself  had  in  his  ears  again  the  familiar 
friendliness  and  the  elusive  meaning  of  the  "Oh,  oh, 
oh ! "  that  had  made  him,  a  fortnight  before,  challenge 
Miss  Barrace  in  vain.  She  had  always  the  air,  this 
picturesque  and  original  lady,  who  struck  him,  so 
oddly,  as  both  antique  and  modern  —  she  had  always 
the  air  of  taking  up  some  joke  that  one  had  already 
had  out  with  her.  The  point  itself,  no  doubt,  was  what 
was  antique,  and  the  use  she  made  of  it  what  was 
modern.  He  felt  just  now  that  her  good-natured  irony 
did  bear  on  something,  and  it  troubled  him  a  little 
that  she  would  n't  be  more  explicit,  only  assuring  him, 
with  the  pleasure  of  observation  so  visible  in  her,  that 
she  would  n't  tell  him  more  for  the  world.  He  could 
take  refuge  but  in  asking  her  what  she  had  done  with 
Waymarsh,  though  it  must  be  added  that  he  felt  him 
self  a  little  on  the  way  to  a  clue  after  she  had  answered 
that  this  personage  was,  in  the  other  room,  engaged 
in  conversation  with  Madame  de  Vionnet.  He  stared 
a  moment  at  the  image  of  such  a  conjunction;  then, 
for  Miss  Barrace's  benefit,  he  wondered.  "Is  she  too 
then  under  the  charm  —  ? " 

"No,  not  a  bit"  —  Miss  Barrace  was  prompt. 
"  She  makes  nothing  of  him.  She 's  bored.  She  won't 
help  you  with  him." 

"Oh,"  Strether  laughed,  "she  can't  do  every 
thing." 

"Of  course  not  —  wonderful  as  she  is.  Besides,  he 
263 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

makes  nothing  of  her.  She  won't  take  him  from  me  — 
though  she  would  n't,  no  doubt,  having  other  affairs 
in  hand,  even  if  she  could.  I  've  never,"  said  Miss  Bar- 
race,  "  seen  her  fail  with  any  one  before.  And  to-night, 
when  she's  so  magnificent,  it  would  seem  to  her 
strange  —  if  she  minded.  So  at  any  rate  I  have  him 
all.  Je  suis  tranquille!" 

Strether  understood,  so  far  as  that  went;  but  he  was 
feeling  for  his  clue.  "  She  strikes  you  to-night  as  par 
ticularly  magnificent  ? " 

"Surely.  Almost  as  I've  never  seen  her.  Does  n't 
she  you  ?  Why  it 's  for  you." 

He  persisted  in  his  candour.   "'For'  me  —  ?" 

"  Oh,  oh,  oh ! "  cried  Miss  Barrace,  who  persisted  in 
the  opposite  of  that  quality. 

"Well,"  he  acutely  admitted,  "she  is  different. 
She's  gay." 

"  She 's  gay ! "  Miss  Barrace  laughed.  "  And  she  has 
beautiful  shoulders  —  though  there 's  nothing  differ 
ent  in  that." 

"No,"  said  Strether,  "one  was  sure  of  her  shoul 
ders.  It  is  n't  her  shoulders." 

His  companion,  with  renewed  mirth  and  the  finest 
sense,  between  the  puffs  of  her  cigarette,  of  the  droll 
ery  of  things,  appeared  to  find  their  conversation 
highly  delightful.  "Yes,  it  is  n't  her  shoulders." 

"What  then  is  it  ?"  Strether  earnestly  enquired. 

"Why,  it's  she  —  simply.  It's  her  mood.  It's  her 
charm." 

"Of  course  it's  her  charm,  but  we're  speaking  of 
the  difference." 

"Well,"  Miss  Barrace  explained,  "she's  just  bril- 

264 


BOOK  SIXTH 

liant,  as  we  used  to  say.   That's  all.   She's  various. 
She's  fifty  women." 

"Ah  but  only  one"  —  Strether  kept  it  clear  —  "at 
a  time." 

"  Perhaps.    But  in  fifty  times  — ! " 

"Oh  we  shan't  come  to  that,"  our  friend  declared; 
and  the  next  moment  he  had  moved  in  another  direc 
tion.  "Will  you  answer  me  a  plain  question  ?  Will  she 
ever  divorce  ? " 

Miss  Barrace  looked  at  him  through  all  her  tortoise- 
shell.  "Why  should  she?" 

It  was  n't  what  he  had  asked  for,  he  signified ;  but 
he  met  it  well  enough.  "To  marry  Chad." 

"Why  should  she  marry  Chad  ?" 

"  Because  I  'm  convinced  she 's  very  fond  of  him. 
She  has  done  wonders  for  him." 

"  Well  then,  how  could  she  do  more  ?  Marrying  a 
man,  or  a  woman  either,"  Miss  Barrace  sagely  went 
on,  "is  never  the  wonder,  for  any  Jack  and  Jill  can 
bring  that  off.  The  wonder  is  their  doing  such  things 
without  marrying." 

Strether  considered  a  moment  this  proposition. 
"You  mean  it's  so  beautiful  for  our  friends  simply  to 
go  on  so  ? " 

But  whatever  he  said  made  her  laugh.  "  Beautiful." 

He  nevertheless  insisted.  "And  that  because  it's 
disinterested  ? " 

She  was  now,  however,  suddenly  tired  of  the  ques 
tion.  "Yes,  then  —  call  it  that.  Besides,  she'll  never 
divorce.  Don't,  moreover,"  she  added,  "believe 
everything  you  hear  about  her  husband." 

"He's  not  then,"  Strether  asked,  "a  wretch?" 
265 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"Oh  yes.    But  charming." 

"Do  you  know  him  ?" 

"I've  met  him.    He's  lien  aimable." 

"To  every  one  but  his  wife  ?" 

"  Oh  for  all  I  know,  to  her  too  —  to  any,  to  every 
woman.  I  hope  you  at  any  rate,"  she  pursued  with 
a  quick  change,  "  appreciate  the  care  I  take  of  Mr. 
Waymarsh." 

"Oh  immensely."  But  Strether  was  not  yet  in 
line.  "At  all  events,"  he  roundly  brought  out,  "the 
attachment's  an  innocent  one." 

"Mine  and  his?  Ah,"  she  laughed,  "don't  rob  it 
of  all  interest ! " 

"  I  mean  our  friend's  here  —  to  the  lady  we  Ve 
been  speaking  of."  That  was  what  he  had  settled  to 
as  an  indirect  but  none  the  less  closely  involved  conse 
quence  of  his  impression  of  Jeanne.  That  was  where 
he  meant  to  stay.  "  It 's  innocent,"  he  repeated  — 
"I  see  the  whole  thing." 

Mystified  by  his  abrupt  declaration,  she  had 
glanced  over  at  Gloriani  as  at  the  unnamed  subject 
of  his  allusion,  but  the  next  moment  she  had  under 
stood  ;  though  indeed  not  before  Strether  had  noticed 
her  momentary  mistake  and  wondered  what  might 
possibly  be  behind  that  too.  He  already  knew  that 
the  sculptor  admired  Madame  de  Vionnet;  but  did 
this  admiration  also  represent  an  attachment  of  which 
the  innocence  was  discussable  ?  He  was  moving  verily 
in  a  strange  air  and  on  ground  not  of  the  firmest.  He 
looked  hard  for  an  instant  at  Miss  Barrace,  but  she 
had  already  gone  on.  "All  right  with  Mr.  Newsome  ? 
Why  of  course  she  is ! "  —  and  she  got  gaily  back  to 

266 


BOOK  SIXTH 

the  question  of  her  own  good  friend.  "I  dare  say 
you're  surprised  that  I'm  not  worn  out  with  all  I 
see  —  it  being  so  much !  —  of  Sitting  Bull.  But  I  'm 
not,  you  know  —  I  don't  mind  him;  I  bear  up,  and 
we  get  on  beautifully.  I  'm  very  strange ;  I  'm  like  that ; 
and  often  I  can't  explain.  There  are  people  who  are 
supposed  interesting  or  remarkable  or  whatever,  and 
who  bore  me  to  death ;  and  then  there  are  others  as  to 
whom  nobody  can  understand  what  anybody  sees  in 
them  —  in  whom  I  see  no  end  of  things."  Then  after 
she  had  smoked  a  moment,  "He's  touching,  you 
know,"  she  said. 

"'Know'?"  Strether  echoed  —  " don't  I,  indeed? 
We  must  move  you  almost  to  tears." 

"Oh  but  I  don't  mean  you!"  she  laughed. 

"You  ought  to  then,  for  the  worst  sign  of  all  —  as 
I  must  have  it  for  you  —  is  that  you  can't  help  me. 
That's  when  a  woman  pities." 

"Ah  but  I  do  help  you!"  she  cheerfully  insisted. 

Again  he  looked  at  her  hard,  and  then  after  a  pause : 
"No  you  don't!" 

Her  tortoise-shell,  on  its  long  chain,  rattled  down. 
"I  help  you  with  Sitting  Bull.  That's  a  good  deal." 

" Oh  that,  yes."  But  Strether  hesitated.  "Do  you 
mean  he  talks  of  me  ? " 

"So  that  I  have  to  defend  you  ?  No,  never." 

"I  see,"  Strether  mused.   "It's  too  deep." 

"That's  his  only  fault,"  she  returned  —  "that 
everything,  with  him,  is  too  deep.  He  has  depths  of 
silence  —  which  he  breaks  only  at  the  longest  inter 
vals  by  a  remark.  And  when  the  remark  comes  it's 
always  something  he  has  seen  or  felt  for  himself — 

267 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

never  a  bit  banal.  That  would  be  what  one  might 
have  feared  and  what  would  kill  me.  But  never." 
She  smoked  again  as  she  thus,  with  amused  com 
placency,  appreciated  her  acquisition.  "And  never 
about  you.  We  keep  clear  of  you.  We're  wonderful. 
But  I'll  tell  you  what  he  does  do,"  she  continued: 
"he  tries  to  make  me  presents." 

"  Presents  ? "  poor  Strether  echoed,  conscious  with 
a  pang  that  he  had  n't  yet  tried  that  in  any  quarter. 

"Why  you  see,"  she  explained,  "he's  as  fine  as  ever 
in  the  victoria;  so  that  when  I  leave  him,  as  I  often 
do  almost  for  hours  —  he  likes  it  so  —  at  the  doors  of 
shops,  the  sight  of  him  there  helps  me,  when  I  come 
out,  to  know  my  carriage  away  off  in  the  rank.  But 
sometimes,  for  a  change,  he  goes  with  me  into  the 
shops,  and  then  I  've  all  I  can  do  to  prevent  his  buy 
ing  me  things." 

"He  wants  to  'treat*  you  ?"  Strether  almost  gasped 
at  all  he  himself  had  n't  thougnt  of.  He  had  a  sense 
of  admiration.  "Oh  he's  much  more  in  the  real  tra 
dition  than  I.  Yes,"  he  mused ;  "  it 's  the  sacred  rage." 

"The  sacred  rage,  exactly!"  —  and  Miss  Barrace, 
who  had  n't  before  heard  this  term  applied,  recog 
nised  its  bearing  with  a  clap  of  her  gemmed  hands. 
"Now  I  do  know  why  he's  not  banal.  But  I  do  pre 
vent  him  all  the  same  —  and  if  you  saw  what  he  some 
times  selects  —  from  buying.  I  save  him  hundreds 
and  hundreds.  I  only  take  flowers." 

"  Flowers  ? "  Strether  echoed  again  with  a  rueful 
reflexion.  How  many  nosegays  had  her  present  con- 
verser  sent  ? 

"Innocent  flowers,"  she  pursued,  "as  much  as  he 
268 


BOOK  SIXTH 

likes.  And  he  sends  me  splendours;  he  knows  all  the 
best  places  —  he  has  found  them  for  himself;  he 's 
wonderful." 

" He  has  n't  told  them  to  me"  her  friend  smiled ; 
"he  has  a  life  of  his  own."  But  Strether  had  swung 
back  to  the  consciousness  that  for  himself  after  all  it 
never  would  have  done.  Waymarsh  had  n't  Mrs. 
Waymarsh  in  the  least  to  consider,  whereas  Lambert 
Strether  had  constantly,  in  the  inmost  honour  of  his 
thoughts,  to  consider  Mrs.  Newsome.  He  liked  more 
over  to  feel  how  much  his  friend  was  in  the  real  tradi 
tion.  Yet  he  had  his  conclusion.  "  What  a  rage  it  is ! " 
He  had  worked  it  out.  "It's  an  opposition." 

She  followed,  but  at  a  distance.  "That's  what  I 
feel.  Yet  to  what  ? " 

"Well,  he  thinks,  you  know,  that  I've  a  life  of  my 
own.  And  I  haven't!" 

"You  haven't?"  She  showed  doubt,  and  her 
laugh  confirmed  it.  "Oh,  oh,  oh!" 

"No  —  not  for  myself.  I  seem  to  have  a  life  only 
for  other  people." 

"Ah  for  them  and  ivith  them!  Just  now  for  in 
stance  with  — " 

"Well,  with  whom  ?"  he  asked  before  she  had  had 
time  to  say. 

His  tone  had  the  effect  of  making  her  hesitate  and 
even,  as  he  guessed,  speak  with  a  difference.  "Say 
with  Miss  Gostrey.  What  do  you  do  for  her?" 

It  really  made  him  wonder.   "Nothing  at  all!" 


Ill 


MADAME  DE  VIONNET,  having  meanwhile  come  in, 
was  at  present  close  to  them,  and  Miss  Barrace  here 
upon,  instead  of  risking  a  rejoinder,  became  again 
with  a  look  that  measured  her  from  top  to  toe  all  mere 
long-handled  appreciative  tortoise-shell.  She  had 
struck  our  friend,  from  the  first  of  her  appearing,  as 
dressed  for  a  great  occasion,  and  she  met  still  more 
than  on  either  of  the  others  the  conception  reawak 
ened  in  him  at  their  garden-party,  the  idea  of  the 
femme  du  monde  in  her  habit  as  she  lived.  Her  bare 
shoulders  and  arms  were  white  and  beautiful;  the 
materials  of  her  dress,  a  mixture,  as  he  supposed,  of 
silk  and  crape,  were  of  a  silvery  grey  so  artfully  com 
posed  as  to  give  an  impression  of  warm  splendour; 
and  round  her  neck  she  wore  a  collar  of  large  old 
emeralds,  the  green  note  of  which  was  more  dimly 
repeated,  at  other  points  of  her  apparel,  in  embroid 
ery,  in  enamel,  in  satin,  in  substances  and  textures 
vaguely  rich.  Her  head,  extremely  fair  and  exquisitely 
festal,  was  like  a  happy  fancy,  a  notion  of  the  antique, 
on  an  old  precious  medal,  some  silver  coin  of  the 
Renaissance;  while  her  slim  lightness  and  brightness, 
her  gaiety,  her  expression,  her  decision,  contributed 
to  an  effect  that  might  have  been  felt  by  a  poet  as  half 
mythological  and  half  conventional.  He  could  have 
compared  her  to  a  goddess  still  partly  engaged  in  a 
morning  cloud,  or  to  a  sea-nymph  waist-high  in  the 
summer  surge.  Above  all  she  suggested  to  him  the 

270 


BOOK  SIXTH 

reflexion  that  the  femme  du  monde  —  in  these  finest 
developments  of  the  type  —  was,  like  Cleopatra  in  the 
play,  indeed  various  and  multifold.  She  had  aspects, 
characters,  days,  nights  —  or  had  them  at  least, 
showed  them  by  a  mysterious  law  of  her  own,  when 
in  addition  to  everything  she  happened  also  to  be 
a  woman  of  genius.  She  was  an  obscure  person,  a 
muffled  person  one  day,  and  a  showy  person,  an  un 
covered  person  the  next.  He  thought  of  Madame  de 
Vionnet  to-night  as  showy  and  uncovered,  though  he 
felt  the  formula  rough,  because,  thanks  to  one  of 
the  short-cuts  of  genius,  she  had  taken  all  his  cate 
gories  by  surprise.  Twice  during  dinner  he  had  met 
Chad's  eyes  in  a  longish  look;  but  these  communica 
tions  had  in  truth  only  stirred  up  again  old  ambiguities 
—  so  little  was  it  clear  from  them  whether  they  were 
an  appeal  or  an  admonition.  "You  see  how  I'm 
fixed,"  was  what  they  appeared  to  convey;  yet  how 
he  was  fixed  was  exactly  what  Strether  did  n't  see. 
However,  perhaps  he  should  see  now. 

"Are  you  capable  of  the  very  great  kindness  of 
going  to  relieve  Newsome,  for  a  few  minutes,  of  the 
rather  crushing  responsibility  of  Madame  Gloriani, 
while  I  say  a  word,  if  he  '11  allow  me,  to  Mr.  Strether, 
of  whom  I  've  a  question  to  ask  ?  Our  host  ought  to 
talk  a  bit  to  those  other  ladies,  and  I  '11  come  back  in 
a  minute  to  your  rescue."  She  made  this  proposal  to 
Miss  Barrace  as  if  her  consciousness  of  a  special  duty 
had  just  flickered  up,  but  that  lady's  recognition  of 
Strether's  little  start  at  it  —  as  at  a  betrayal  on  the 
speaker's  part  of  a  domesticated  state  —  was  as  mute 
as  his  own  comment;  and  after  an  instant,  when  their 

271 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

fellow  guest  had  good-naturedly  left  them,  he  had 
been  given  something  else  to  think  of.  "Why  has 
Maria  so  suddenly  gone  ?  Do  you  know  ? "  That  was 
the  question  Madame  de  Vionnet  had  brought  with 
her. 

"I'm  afraid  I've  no  reason  to  give  you  but  the 
simple  reason  I  've  had  from  her  in  a  note  —  the  sud 
den  obligation  to  join  in  the  south  a  sick  friend  who 
has  got  worse." 

"Ah  then  she  has  been  writing  you  ?" 

"Not  since  she  went  —  I  had  only  a  brief  explana 
tory  word  before  she  started.  I  went  to  see  her," 
Strether  explained  —  "it  was  the  day  after  I  called  on 
you  —  but  she  was  already  on  her  way,  and  her  con 
cierge  told  me  that  in  case  of  my  coming  I  was  to  be 
informed  she  had  written  to  me.  I  found  her  note 
when  I  got  home." 

Madame  de  Vionnet  listened  with  interest  and  with 
her  eyes  on  Strether's  face;  then  her  delicately  decor 
ated  head  had  a  small  melancholy  motion.  "She 
did  n't  write  to  me.  I  went  to  see  her,"  she  added, 
"almost  immediately  after  I  had  seen  you,  and  as  I 
assured  her  I  would  do  when  I  met  her  at  Gloriani's. 
She  had  n't  then  told  me  she  was  to  be  absent,  and 
I  felt  at  her  door  as  if  I  understood.  She's  absent 
—  with  all  respect  to  her  sick  friend,  though  I  know 
indeed  she  has  plenty  —  so  that  I  may  not  see  her. 
She  does  n't  want  to  meet  me  again.  Well,"  she  con 
tinued  with  a  beautiful  conscious  mildness,  "I  liked 
and  admired  her  beyond  every  one  in  the  old  time, 
and  she  knew  it  —  perhaps  that's  precisely  what 
has  made  her  go — and  I  dare  say  I  have  n't  lost  her 

272 


BOOK  SIXTH 

for  ever."  Strether  still  said  nothing;  he  had  a  horror, 
as  he  now  thought  of  himself,  of  being  in  question 
between  women  —  was  in  fact  already  quite  enough 
on  his  way  to  that;  and  there  was  moreover,  as  it 
came  to  him,  perceptibly,  something  behind  these 
allusions  and  professions  that,  should  he  take  it  in, 
would  square  but  ill  with  his  present  resolve  to  sim 
plify.  It  was  as  if,  for  him,  all  the  same,  her  softness 
and  sadness  were  sincere.  He  felt  that  not  less  when 
she  soon  went  on :  "  I  'm  extremely  glad  of  her  happi 
ness."  But  it  also  left  him  mute  —  sharp  and  fine 
though  the  imputation  it  conveyed.  What  it  conveyed 
was  that  he  was  Maria  Gostrey's  happiness,  and  for 
the  least  little  instant  he  had  the  impulse  to  challenge 
the  thought.  He  could  have  done  so  however  only 
by  saying  "  What  then  do  you  suppose  to  be  between 
us  ?"  and  he  was  wonderfully  glad  a  moment  later  not 
to  have  spoken.  He  would  rather  seem  stupid  any 
day  than  fatuous,  and  he  drew  back  as  well,  with  a 
smothered  inward  shudder,  from  the  consideration  of 
what  women — of  highly-developed  type  in  particular 
— might  think  of  each  other.  Whatever  he  had  come 
out  for  he  had  n't  come  to  go  into  that ;  so  that  he 
absolutely  took  up  nothing  his  interlocutress  had  now 
let  drop.  Yet,  though  he  had  kept  away  from  her  for 
days,  had  laid  wholly  on  herself  the  burden  of  their 
meeting  again,  she  had  n't  a  gleam  of  irritation  to 
show  him.  "  Well,  about  Jeanne  now  ? "  she  smiled 
—  it  had  the  gaiety  with  which  she  had  originally  come 
in.  He  felt  it  on  the  instant  to  represent  her  motive 
and  real  errand.  But  he  had  been  schooling  her  of  a 
truth  to  say  much  in  proportion  to  his  little.  "Do  you 

273 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

make  out  that  she  has  a  sentiment  ?  I  mean  for  Mr. 
Newsome." 

Almost  resentful,  Strether  could  at  last  be  prompt. 
"  How  can  I  make  out  such  things  ? " 

She  remained  perfectly  good-natured.  "Ah  but 
they  're  beautiful  little  things,  and  you  make  out  — 
don't  pretend !  —  everything  in  the  world.  Have  n't 
you,"  she  asked,  "been  talking  with  her?" 

"Yes,  but  not  about  Chad.    At  least  not  much." 

"  Oh  you  don't  require  *  much' ! "  she  reassuringly  de 
clared.  But  she  immediately  changed  her  ground.  "I 
hope  you  remember  your  promise  of  the  other  day." 

"To  'save'  you,  as  you  called  it?" 

"I  call  it  so  still.  You  will?"  she  insisted.  "You 
have  n't  repented  ? " 

He  wondered.  "  No  —  but  I  've  been  thinking  what 
I  meant." 

She  kept  it  up.   "And  not,  a  little,  what  7  did  ?" 

"No  —  that's  not  necessary.  It  will  be  enough  if 
I  know  what  I  meant  myself." 

"And  don't  you  know,"  she  asked,  "l>y  this  time  ?" 

Again  he  had  a  pause.  "I  think  you  ought  to  leave 
it  to  me.  But  how  long,"  he  added,  "  do  you  give  me  ? " 

"  It  seems  to  me  much  more  a  question  of  how  long 
you  give  me.  Does  n't  our  friend  here  himself,  at  any 
rate,"  she  went  on,  "perpetually  make  me  present  to 
you?" 

"  Not,"  Strether  replied,  "  by  ever  speaking  of  you 
to  me." 

"  He  never  does  that  ? " 

"Never." 

She  considered,  and,  if  the  fact  was  disconcerting 
274 


BOOK  SIXTH 

to  her,  effectually  concealed  it.  The  next  minute  in 
deed  she  had  recovered.  "No,  he  would  n't.  But  do 
you  need  that  ? " 

Her  emphasis  was  wonderful,  and  though  his  eyes 
had  been  wandering  he  looked  at  her  longer  now. 
"I  see  what  you  mean." 

"Of  course  you  see  what  I  mean." 

Her  triumph  was  gentle,  and  she  really  had  tones 
to  make  justice  weep.  "I  've  before  me  what  he  owes 
you." 

"Admit  then  that  that's  something,"  she  said,  yet 
still  with  the  same  discretion  in  her  pride. 

He  took  in  this  note  but  went  straight  on.  "  You  've 
made  of  him  what  I  see,  but  what  I  don't  see  is  how 
in  the  world  you  've  done  it." 

"Ah  that's  another  question!"  she  smiled.  "The 
point  is  of  what  use  is  your  declining  to  know  me  when 
to  know  Mr.  Newsome  —  as  you  do  me  the  honour 
to  find  him  —  is  just  to  know  me." 

"I  see,"  he  mused,  still  with  his  eyes  on  her.  "I 
should  n't  have  met  you  to-night." 

She  raised  and  dropped  her  linked  hands.  "It 
does  n't  matter.  If  I  trust  you  why  can't  you  a  little 
trust  me  too  ?  And  why  can't  you  also,"  she  asked  in 
another  tone,  "trust  yourself?"  But  she  gave  him 
no  time  to  reply.  "Oh  I  shall  be  so  easy  for  you! 
And  I  'm  glad  at  any  rate  you  've  seen  my  child." 

"I'm  glad  too,"  he  said;  "but  she  does  you  no 
good." 

"No  good?" — Madame  de  Vionnet  had  a  clear 
stare.  "  Why  she 's  an  angel  of  light." 

"That's  precisely  the  reason.  Leave  her  alone. 
275 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Don't  try  to  find  out.  I  mean,"  he  explained,  "  about 
what  you  spoke  to  me  of — the  way  she  feels." 

His  companion  wondered.  "Because  one  really 
won't?" 

"Well,  because  I  ask  you,  as  a  favour  to  myself,  not 
to.  She 's  the  most  charming  creature  I  've  ever  seen. 
Therefore  don't  touch  her.  Don't  know  —  don't  want 
to  know.  And  moreover  —  yes  —  you  wont." 

It  was  an  appeal,  of  a  sudden,  and  she  took  it  in. 
"As  a  favour  to  you  ?" 

"  Well  —  since  you  ask  me." 

"Anything,  everything  you  ask,"  she  smiled.  "I 
shaa't  know  then  —  never.  Thank  you,"  she  added 
with  peculiar  gentleness  as  she  turned  away. 

The  sound  of  it  lingered  with  him,  making  him 
fairly  feel  as  if  he  had  been  tripped  up  and  had  a  fall. 
In  the  very  act  of  arranging  with  her  for  his  inde 
pendence  he  had,  under  pressure  from  a  particular 
perception,  inconsistently,  quite  stupidly,  committed 
himself,  and,  with  her  subtlety  sensitive  on  the  spot 
to  an  advantage,  she  had  driven  in  by  a  single  word 
a  little  golden  nail,  the  sharp  intention  of  which  he 
signally  felt.  He  had  n't  detached,  he  had  more 
closely  connected  himself,  and  his  eyes,  as  he  con 
sidered  with  some  intensity  this  circumstance,  met 
another  pair  which  had  just  come  within  their  range 
and  which  struck  him  as  reflecting  his  sense  of  what 
he  had  done.  He  recognised  them  at  the  same  mo 
ment  as  those  of  little  Bilham,  who  had  apparently 
drawn  near  on  purpose  to  speak  to  him,  and  little  Bil 
ham  was  n't,  in  the  conditions,  the  person  to  whom 
his  heart  would  be  most  closed.  They  were  seated 

276 


BOOK  SIXTH 

together  a  minute  later  at  the  angle  of  the  room  ob 
liquely  opposite  the  corner  in  which  Gloriani  was  still 
engaged  with  Jeanne  de  Vionnet,  to  whom  at  first 
and  in  silence  their  attention  had  been  benevolently 
given.  "I  can't  see  for  my  life,"  Strether  had  then 
observed,  "how  a  young  fellow  of  any  spirit  —  such 
a  one  as  you  for  instance  —  can  be  admitted  to  the 
sight  of  that  young  lady  without  being  hard  hit.  Why 
don't  you  go  in,  little  Bilham  ? "  He  remembered  the 
tone  into  which  he  had  been  betrayed  on  the  garden- 
bench  at  the  sculptor's  reception,  and  this  might 
make  up  for  that  by  being  much  more  the  right  sort  of 
thing  to  say  to  a  young  man  worthy  of  any  advice  at 
all.  "There  would  be  some  reason." 

"Some  reason  for  what  ?" 

"Why  for  hanging  on  here." 

"To  offer  my  hand  and  fortune  to  Mademoiselle 
de  Vionnet  ? " 

"Well,"  Strether  asked,  "to  what  lovelier  appari 
tion  could  you  offer  them  ?  She 's  the  sweetest  little 
thing  I've  ever  seen." 

"She's  certainly  immense.  I  mean  she's  the  real 
thing.  I  believe  the  pale  pink  petals  are  folded  up 
there  for  some  wondrous  efflorescence  in  time;  to 
open,  that  is,  to  some  great  golden  sun.  I'm  unfor 
tunately  but  a  small  farthing  candle.  What  chance 
in  such  a  field  for  a  poor  little  painter-man  ? " 

"Oh  you're  good  enough,"  Strether  threw  out. 

"  Certainly  I  'm  good  enough.  We  're  good  enough, 
I  consider,  nous  autres,  for  anything.  But  she's  too 
good.  There 's  the  difference.  They  would  n't  look 
at  me." 

277 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

Strether,  lounging  on  his  divan  and  still  charmed 
by  the  young  girl,  whose  eyes  had  consciously  strayed 
to  him,  he  fancied,  with  a  vague  smile  —  Strether, 
enjoying  the  whole  occasion  as  with  dormant  pulses 
at  last  awake  and  in  spite  of  new  material  thrust  upon 
him,  thought  over  his  companion's  words.  "Whom 
do  you  mean  by  'they'  ?  She  and  her  mother?" 

"She  and  her  mother.  And  she  has  a  father  too, 
who,  whatever  else  he  may  be,  certainly  can't  be  in 
different  to  the  possibilities  she  represents.  Besides, 
there's  Chad." 

Strether  was  silent  a  little.  "Ah  but  he  does  n't 
care  for  her  —  not,  I  mean,  it  appears,  after  all,  in 
the  sense  I'm  speaking  of.  He's  not  in  love  with 
her." 

"No  —  but  he's  her  best  friend;  after  her  mother. 
He 's  very  fond  of  her.  He  has  his  ideas  about  what 
can  be  done  for  her." 

"Well,  it's  very  strange!"  Strether  presently  re 
marked  with  a  sighing  sense  of  fulness. 

"Very  strange  indeed.  That 's  just  the  beauty  of  it. 
Is  n't  it  very  much  the  kind  of  beauty  you  had  in 
mind,"  little  Bilham  went  on,  "when  you  were  so 
wonderful  and  so  inspiring  to  me  the  other  day  ? 
Did  n't  you  adjure  me,  in  accents  I  shall  never  forget, 
to  see,  while  I  've  a  chance,  everything  I  can  ?  —  and 
really  to  see,  for  it  must  have  been  that  only  you 
meant.  Well,  you  did  me  no  end  of  good,  and  I  'm 
doing  my  best.  I  do  make  it  out  a  situation." 

"  So  do  I ! "  Strether  went  on  after  a  moment.  But 
he  had  the  next  minute  an  inconsequent  question. 
"  How  comes  Chad  so  mixed  up,  anyway  ? " 

278 


BOOK  SIXTH 

"Ah,  ah,  ah!" — and  little  Bilham  fell  back  on 
his  cushions. 

It  reminded  our  friend  of  Miss  Barrace,  and  he 
felt  again  the  brush  of  his  sense  of  moving  in  a  maze 
of  mystic  closed  allusions.  Yet  he  kept  hold  of  his 
thread.  "Of  course  I  understand  really;  only  the 
general  transformation  makes  me  occasionally  gasp. 
Chad  with  such  a  voice  in  the  settlement  of  the  future 
of  a  little  countess  —  no,"  he  declared,  "it  takes  more 
time!  You  say  moreover,'*  he  resumed,  "that  we're 
inevitably,  people  like  you  and  me,  out  of  the  running. 
The  curious  fact  remains  that  Chad  himself  is  n't. 
The  situation  does  n't  make  for  it,  but  in  a  different 
one  he  could  have  her  if  he  would." 

"Yes,  but  that 's  only  because  he 's  rich  and  because 
there's  a  possibility  of  his  being  richer.  They  won't 
think  of  anything  but  a  great  name  or  a  great  fortune." 

"Well,"  said  Strether,  "he'll  have  no  great  fortune 
on  these  lines.  He  must  stir  his  stumps." 

"Is  that,"  little  Bilham  enquired,  "what  you  were 
saying  fo  Madame  de  Vionnet  ? " 

"No  —  I  don't  say  much  to  her.  Of  course,  how 
ever,"  Strether  continued,  "he  can  make  sacrifices  if 
he  likes." 

Little  Bilham  had  a  pause.  "Oh  he's  not  keen  for 
sacrifices;  or  thinks,  that  is,  possibly,  that  he  has 
made  enough." 

"Well,  it  is  virtuous,"  his  companion  observed  with 
some  decision. 

"That's  exactly,"  the  young  man  dropped  after  a 
moment,  "what  I  mean." 

It  kept  Strether  himself  silent  a  little.   "I've  made 
279 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

it  out  for  myself,"  he  then  went  on;  "I've  really, 
within  the  last  half-hour,  got  hold  of  it.  I  understand 
it  in  short  at  last;  which  at  first — when  you  orig 
inally  spoke  to  me  —  I  did  n't.  Nor  when  Chad 
originally  spoke  to  me  either." 

"Oh,"  said  little  Bilham,  "I  don't  think  that  at 
that  time  you  believed  me." 

"  Yes  —  I  did ;  and  I  believed  Chad  too.  It  would 
have  been  odious  and  unmannerly  —  as  well  as  quite 
perverse  —  if  I  had  n't.  What  interest  have  you  in 
deceiving  me  ? " 

The  young  man  cast  about.  "What  interest 
have  ir 

"Yes.   Chad  might  have.   But  you?" 

"Ah,  ah,  ah!"  little  Bilham  exclaimed. 

It  might,  on  repetition,  as  a  mystification,  have 
irritated  our  friend  a  little;  but  he  knew,  once  more, 
as  we  have  seen,  where  he  was,  and  his  being  proof 
against  everything  was  only  another  attestation  that 
he  meant  to  stay  there.  "I  could  n't,  without  my  own 
impression,  realise.  She's  a  tremendously  clever  bril 
liant  capable  woman,  and  with  an  extraordinary 
charm  on  top  of  it  all  —  the  charm  we  surely  all  of  us 
this  evening  know  what  to  think  of.  It  is  n't  every 
clever  brilliant  capable  woman  that  has  it.  In  fact  it 's 
rare  with  any  woman.  So  there  you  are,"  Strether 
proceeded  as  if  not  for  little  Bilham's  benefit  alone. 
"I  understand  what  a  relation  with  such  a  woman  — 
what  such  a  high  fine  friendship  —  may  be.  It  can't 
be  vulgar  or  coarse,  anyway  —  and  that 's  the  point." 

"Yes,  that's  the  point,"  said  little  Bilham.  "It 
can't  be  vulgar  or  coarse.  And,  bless  us  and  save  us, 

280 


BOOK  SIXTH 

it  is  rit !  It 's,  upon  my  word,  the  very  finest  thing 
I  ever  saw  in  my  life,  and  the  most  distinguished." 

Strether,  from  beside  him  and  leaning  back  with 
him  as  he  leaned,  dropped  on  him  a  momentary  look 
which  filled  a  short  interval  and  of  which  he  took  no 
notice.  He  only  gazed  before  him  with  intent  parti 
cipation.  "Of  course  what  it  has  done  for  him," 
Strether  at  all  events  presently  pursued,  "of  course 
what  it  has  done  for  him  —  that  is  as  to  how  it  has 
so  wonderfully  worked  —  is  n't  a  thing  I  pretend 
to  understand.  I've  to  take  it  as  I  find  it.  There 
he  is." 

"There  he  is!"  little  Bilham  echoed.  "And  it's 
really  and  truly  she.  I  don't  understand  either,  even 
with  my  longer  and  closer  opportunity.  But  I  'm  like 
you,"  he  added;  "I  can  admire  and  rejoice  even  when 
I  'm  a  little  in  the  dark.  You  see  I  Ve  watched  it  for 
some  three  years,  and  especially  for  this  last.  He 
was  n't  so  bad  before  it  as  I  seem  to  have  made  out 
that  you  think  — " 

"Oh  I  don't  think  anything  now!"  Strether  impa 
tiently  broke  in :  "  that  is  but  what  I  do  think !  I  mean 
that  originally,  for  her  to  have  cared  for  him  — " 

"  There  must  have  been  stuff  in  him  ?  Oh  yes,  there 
was  stuff  indeed,  and  much  more  of  it  than  ever 
showed,  I  dare  say,  at  home.  Still,  you  know,"  the 
young  man  in  all  fairness  developed,  "  there  was  room 
for  her,  and  that's  where  she  came  in.  She  saw  her 
chance  and  took  it.  That 's  what  strikes  me  as  having 
been  so  fine.  But  of  course,"  he  wound  up,  "  he  liked 
her  first." 

"Naturally,"  said  Strether. 
281 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"I  mean  that  they  first  met  somehow  and  some 
where  —  I  believe  in  some  American  house  —  and 
she,  without  in  the  least  then  intending  it,  made  her 
impression.  Then  with  time  and  opportunity  he  made 
his;  and  after  that  she  was  as  bad  as  he." 

Strether  vaguely  took  it  up.    "As  'bad'?" 

"She  began,  that  is,  to  care  —  to  care  very  much. 
Alone,  and  in  her  horrid  position,  she  found  it,  when 
once  she  had  started,  an  interest.  It  was,  it  is,  an  in 
terest  ;  and  it  did  —  it  continues  to  do  —  a  lot  for  her 
self  as  well.  So  she  still  cares.  She  cares  in  fact,"  said 
little  Bilham  thoughtfully,  "more." 

Strether's  theory  that  it  was  none  of  his  business 
was  somehow  not  damaged  by  the  way  he  took  this. 
"  More,  you  mean,  than  he  ? "  On  which  his  com 
panion  looked  round  at  him,  and  now  for  an  instant 
their  eyes  met.  "More  than  he?"  he  repeated. 

Little  Bilham,  for  as  long,  hung  fire.  "Will  you 
never  tell  any  one  ? " 

Strether  thought.   "Whom  should  I  tell  ?" 

"Why  I  supposed  you  reported  regularly — " 

"To  people  at  home?"  —  Strether  took  him  up. 
"Well,  I  won't  tell  them  this." 

The  young  man  at  last  looked  away.  "Then  she 
does  now  care  more  than  he." 

"  Oh ! "  Strether  oddly  exclaimed. 

But  his  companion  immediately  met  it.  "Have  n't 
you  after  all  had  your  impression  of  it  ?  That 's  how 
you  Ve  got  hold  of  him." 

"Ah  but  I  have  n't  got  hold  of  him!" 

"Oh  I  say!"    But  it  was  all  little  Bilham  said. 

"It's  at  any  rate  none  of  my  business.  I  mean," 
282 


BOOK  SIXTH 

Strether  explained,  "nothing  else  than  getting  hold  of 
him  is."  It  appeared,  however,  to  strike  him  as  his 
business  to  add :  "The  fact  remains  nevertheless  that 
she  has  saved  him." 

Little  Bilham  just  waited.  "I  thought  that  was 
what  you  were  to  do." 

But  Strether  had  his  answer  ready.  "I'm  speaking 
—  in  connexion  with  her  —  of  his  manners  and  mor 
als,  his  character  and  life.  I'm  speaking  of  him  as 
a  person  to  deal  with  and  talk  with  and  live  with  — 
speaking  of  him  as  a  social  animal." 

"And  is  n't  it  as  a  social  animal  that  you  also  want 
him?" 

"  Certainly ;  so  that  it 's  as  if  she  had  saved  him  for 
us." 

"It  strikes  you  accordingly  then,"  the  young  man 
threw  out,  "as  for  you  all  to  save  her?" 

"Oh  for  us  'all'  — !"  Strether  could  but  laugh  at 
that.  It  brought  him  back,  however,  to  the  point  he 
had  really  wished  to  make.  "They've  accepted  their 
situation  —  hard  as  it  is.  They  're  not  free  —  at  least 
she's  not;  but  they  take  what's  left  to  them.  It's  a 
friendship,  of  a  beautiful  sort;  and  that's  what  makes 
them  so  strong.  They  're  straight,  they  feel ;  and  they 
keep  each  other  up.  It's  doubtless  she,  however, 
who,  as  you  yourself  have  hinted,  feels  it  most." 

Little  Bilham  appeared  to  wonder  what  he  had 
hinted.  "Feels  most  that  they're  straight?" 

"Well,  feels  that  she  is,  and  the  strength  that  comes 
from  it.  She  keeps  him  up  —  she  keeps  the  whole 
thing  up.  When  people  are  able  to  it's  fine.  She's 
wonderful,  wonderful,  as  Miss  Barrace  says;  and  he 

283 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

is,  in  his  way,  too ;  however,  as  a  mere  man,  he  may 
sometimes  rebel  and  not  feel  that  he  finds  his  account 
in  it.  She  has  simply  given  him  an  immense  moral 
lift,  and  what  that  can  explain  is  prodigious.  That 's 
why  I  speak  of  it  as  a  situation.  It  is  one,  if  there 
ever  was."  And  Strether,  with  his  head  back  and 
his  eyes  on  the  ceiling,  seemed  to  lose  himself  .n  the 
vision  of  it. 

His  companion  attended  deeply.  "You  state  it 
much  better  than  I  could." 

"Oh  you  see  it  does  n't  concern  you." 

Little  Bilham  considered.  "  I  thought  you  said  just 
now  that  it  does  n't  concern  you  either." 

"Well,  it  does  n't  a  bit  as  Madame  de  Vionnet's  af 
fair.  But  as  we  were  again  saying  just  now,  what  did 
I  come  out  for  but  to  save  him  ? " 

"Yes  —  to  remove  him." 

"To  save  him  by  removal;  to  win  him  over  to  him 
self  thinking  it  best  he  shall  take  up  business  —  think 
ing  he  must  immediately  do  therefore  what's  neces 
sary  to  that  end." 

"Well,"  said  little  Bilham  after  a  moment,  "you 
have  won  him  over.  He  does  think  it  best.  He  has 
within  a  day  or  two  again  said  to  me  as  much." 

"And  that,"  Strether  asked,  "is  why  you  consider 
that  he  cares  less  than  she  ? " 

"  Cares  less  for  her  than  she  for  him  ?  Yes,  that 's 
one  of  the  reasons.  But  other  things  too  have  given 
me  the  impression.  A  man,  don't  you  think  ? "  little 
Bilham  presently  pursued,  "cant,,  in  such  conditions, 
care  so  much  as  a  woman.  It  takes  different  condi 
tions  to  make  him,  and  then  perhaps  he  cares  more. 

284 


BOOK  SIXTH 

Chad,"  Rewound  up,  "has  his  possible  future  before 
him." 

"Are  you  speaking  of  his  business  future?" 

"No  —  on  the  contrary;  of  the  other,  the  future  of 
what  you  so  justly  call  their  situation.  M.  de  Vionnet 
may  live  for  ever." 

"Ss3  that  they  can't  marry?" 

The  young  man  waited  a  moment.  "Not  being  able 
to  marry  is  all  they've  with  any  confidence  to  look 
forward  to.  A  woman  —  a  particular  woman  —  may 
stand  that  strain.  But  can  a  man  ?"  he  propounded. 

Strether's  answer  was  as  prompt  as  if  he  had  al 
ready,  for  himself,  worked  it  out.  "Not  without  a 
very  high  ideal  of  conduct.  But  that 's  j  ust  what  we  're 
attributing  to  Chad.  And  how,  for  that  matter,"  he 
mused,  "  does  his  going  to  America  diminish  the  par 
ticular  strain  ?  Would  n't  it  seem  rather  to  add  to  it  ? " 

"Out  of  sight  out  of  mind!"  his  companion 
laughed.  Then  more  bravely:  "Wouldn't  distance 
lessen  the  torment  ? "  But  before  Strether  could  reply, 
"The  thing  is,  you  see,  Chad  ought  to  marry!"  he 
wound  up. 

Strether,  for  a  little,  appeared  to  think  of  it.  "  If 
you  talk  of  torments  you  don't  diminish  mine ! "  he 
then  broke  out.  The  next  moment  he  was  on  his  feet 
with  a  question.  "He  ought  to  marry  whom  ?" 

Little  Bilham  rose  more  slowly.  "Well,  some  one 
he  can  —  some  thoroughly  nice  girl." 

Strether's  eyes,  as  they  stood  together,  turned  again 
to  Jeanne.  "Do  you  mean  her?  " 

His  friend  made  a  sudden  strange  face.  "After 
being  in  love  with  her  mother  ?  No." 

285 


THE  AMBASSADORS 

"  But  is  n't  it  exactly  your  idea  that  he  is  rit  in  love 
with  her  mother  ? " 

His  friend  once  more  had  a  pause.  "Well,  he  is  n't 
at  any  rate  in  love  with  Jeanne." 

"I  dare  say  not." 

"  How  can  he  be  with  any  other  woman  ? " 

"Oh  that  I  admit.  But  being  in  love  isn't,  you 
know,  here  " — little  Bilham  spoke  in  friendly  reminder 
—  "  thought  necessary,  in  strictness,  for  marriage." 

"And  what  torment  —  to  call  a  torment  —  can 
there  ever  possibly  be  with  a  woman  like  that  ? "  As 
if  from  the  interest  of  his  own  question  Strether  had 
gone  on  without  hearing.  "  Is  it  for  her  to  have  turned 
a  man  out  so  wonderfully,  too,  only  for  somebody 
else  ? "  He  appeared  to  make  a  point  of  this,  and  little 
Bilham  looked  at  him  now.  "  When  it 's  for  each  other 
that  people  give  things  up  they  don't  miss  them." 
Then  he  threw  off  as  with  an  extravagance  of  which 
he  was  conscious :  "  Let  them  face  the  future  to 
gether  ! " 

Little  Bilham  looked  at  him  indeed.  "You  mean 
that  after  all  he  should  n't  go  back  ? " 

"I  mean  that  if  he  gives  her  up  — !" 

"Yes?" 

"Well,  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself."  But 
Strether  spoke  with  a  sound  that  might  have  passed 
for  a  laugh. 


END  OF  VOLUME  I 


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